


The Cellist

by SaraNoH



Series: The Cellist [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 32,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraNoH/pseuds/SaraNoH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of missing scenes and inserts to include my version of The Cellist into episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. T.R.A.C.K.S.

**Author's Note:**

> After writing The Paths We Carve, I wasn't quite ready to let go of Anna, who is my version of the Cellist. Thus, I started this series. I'll update after each episode to see if I can carve out a place for Anna with Phil and the team. this, of course, might mean bending things that happen in the show a bit, but I'll try to leave canon as in tact as possible.
> 
> Naturally, I start this when the show decides to go on a month-long hiatus. This first scene coincides with the episode T.R.A.C.K.S.
> 
> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for the beta and encouragement.

It’s just after four-thirty in the morning when her phone rings. Anna opens one eye to read _Unknown_ on the caller ID. She’s had too many years as a soldier’s wife to ignore that. “Hello,” she answers, but it comes out gravelly. She clears her throat and repeats the greeting.

“It’s me,” Phil replies. “Sorry to wake you.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks while sitting up in bed and turning on the light. Felix, her cat, hisses at her from waking him; she flips him off. “And why aren’t you calling me from your regular number?”

There’s a slight hesitation before he says, “Please tell me you don’t have my actual name in your phone.”

She’s not awake enough to contain her annoyed sigh. “You’re listed under Thomas Fowler. How many times do I have to say I’ve played this game before until you start believing me?”

“Sorry,” he mutters.

They sit in silence for a full twenty seconds before she prods, “You going to tell me what’s going on or—“

“Skye was hurt.”

She feels her stomach drop and her hair stand on end at his words. “How hurt?”

“It’s really bad. We’re en route to a medical facility now, and hopefully we can get there soon enough.”

Anna’d been around the girl—no, she’s not an actual child, but she may as well be in Phil’s mind, Anna knows—for all of maybe ten hours. But in that time, it was hard to miss the light in Skye’s smile and how well she ties together the individual members of Phil’s motley crew. Even though Anna’s only known Skye for a little over a week, her heart breaks at the news.

“What do you need from me?” she asks.

That’s when he sighs, and Anna’s sadness boils into the first few flickers of anger. “The people we’re after,” Phil answers, “they want to make this personal. They’re doing things to get to me.”

Her free hand fists in the sheet, and she briefly wonders if she set the security system before bed. Not that it would stop the level of people Phil deals with. “Am I in danger?”

“No,” he tells her quickly. “Not at all. At least, I don’t think so. There’s someone in their organization that can… They know things and I don’t know how, but…” He pauses to sigh, and Anna can clearly picture him holed up in his office, shoulders slumped, and face drawn with worry. “If something were to happen to you, it would kill me.”

“That’s sweet, but still too soon.” Silence fills the line again, so she tacks on, “That was supposed to be a joke. Well, not the _too soon_ part, but you know—joke.”

“Yeah,” he whispers.

Her foot starts to bounce against the mattress as she tries to fight of nerves of impending doom. “Phil, you have to use your words. I can’t read minds.”

He sighs before telling her, “I think it might be best if I stay away for a bit—no contact, no visits, nothing.”

“But I just got you back.” Anna wants to kick herself for not only saying the words but for sounding like a sixteen-year-old when she does. She hasn’t had a high school sweetheart in twenty years; she should know better.

“I know,” he replies, and she can at least take comfort in the fact that he sounds broken, too. “But I can’t let anything happen to you. It’s just until we take care of—“

“Please,” Anna huffs, and what little control she has over her temper snaps. “I know these things don’t get taken care of quickly or cleanly. This could take a while—years, even. And for that whole time we’re supposed to, what, forget we said we’d try this again?” She sighs and runs a hand over her face.

“Please,” he asks quietly. “Please don’t give up on me.”

“You know you can only say that so many times and before it stops working.”

The line is quiet again before he says, “Give me two weeks.”

“One,” Anna argues. “One week or I’m done.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “I should probably get off of here.”

“Phil, you’ll call me if something happens to her, won’t you?”

“Of course,” he promises. “I’m sorry. I hate having to do this, but I can’t handle one more thing to worry about right now.”

“Yeah,” she says for lack of a better response.

“Call me if at all you think someone might be after you.” There’s a break before he asks, “You still have your gun?”

“Yes,” she answers reluctantly, the knot in her stomach only increasing in size. “Do I really need to start carrying it?”

“It would make me feel better about things. When was the last time you went to the range?”

“A few days ago. We have a Czech conductor in town, and you know how I feel about Czech conductors.” The line falls silent again. “Another joke, Phil. You’re supposed to laugh; that’s what normal people do.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes again, and there’s so much exhaustion in his voice that she wonders how he’s not drowning in it. “I really need to go check in on the team. I’ll call you when I can.” She can hear him take in a breath before he softly says, “I love you.”

Her eyes fall shut at that. This is the kind of thing she’s exhausted with— _I can’t talk to you but I still love you. I can’t come and see you but I still need you around._

But then Anna remembers the brokenness and desperation in his face.

“Love you, too,” she says and three seconds later the line goes dead.

She scoots back into bed and largely ignores when Felix tries to snuggle up against her thigh. After an hour of tossing and turning, she gets out of bed with a string of curses, slaps the practice mute onto her cello, and decides that five-thirty in the morning is as good a time as any to rehearse Dvorak.


	2. T.A.H.I.T.I.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a follow up to the episode "T.A.H.I.T.I.", so spoilers for that episode apply.
> 
> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for the beta and approval.

The knock on Anna’s door comes just after ten in the morning. It’s a Sunday, and she has to be at the concert hall in two hours. Since she isn’t expecting anyone, she reluctantly takes her gun with her when she answers the door, because that’s what Phil said to do, and she trusts him on issues of security. What she isn’t expecting is to see Phil himself through the peephole.

She jerks the door open with her free hand and, for a split second, catches a look of utter loss on Phil’s face before it’s immediately covered by what she refers to as his work mask. His eyes flicker down to the gun half-hidden by the door, and his eyebrows go up. “I hope that’s not for me.”

Anna’s stomach clenches at the tightness in his voice and the emotion he can’t quite cover up in his eyes. Immediately, since he said he wouldn’t be in touch for a week to figure get help for Skye and to figure things out and that was only thirty hours ago, she assumes the worst. Opening her mouth to apologize, she catches a flash of brown hair just over Phil’s shoulder.

Skye is pale, but upright thanks to the help of Simmons. Behind them Fitz silently tuts and fidgets while Ward’s gaze shifts all around, including at Anna’s gun. 

She clicks the safety into place and raises her hands in the traditional _I surrender_ pose before half-tossing the firearm onto the table in the entryway. “Get her in here,” she orders, and the group quickly makes their entrance into her home.

“I can walk by myself,” Skye mutters as she passes.

Phil grabs Anna’s arm and gently pulls her into the kitchen. “Mind giving up your guest bedroom for a little while?”

“Define ‘a little while,’ and more importantly, what’s the girl who you weren’t sure was going to live doing walking around?”

He sighs and then rolls his lips while hunting for words. “I found a way to help her, like I was helped.” That doesn’t sit well with Anna, and it must be evident on her face because he does that sharp exhale thing when he’s annoyed. “I’ve heard nothing in the last day-and-a-half but how I shouldn’t push limits and whether or not it’s the right thing to do, but it’s done.”

“How?” Anna asks. “Should she even be here? Shouldn’t she be in a hospital?”

“Jemma’s run enough tests on her in the last eight hours to confirm she’s healthy enough to not be in a hospital bed. She’s not nearly up to full speed, but she’ll be fine here,” he replies.

Anna crosses her arms. “You still didn’t answer the how.”

His gaze falls to his always-polished shoes. “I can’t,” he tells her quietly.

“Can’t or won’t?”

His eyes rise to meet hers and again she sees fear in them. A deeper version than when he sought her out to let her know he was alive. “Please just trust me on this.”

She wants to argue that the only reason she agreed to try this again is because he said he was done with secrets, but the look in his eyes scares her into swallowing her complaint. “How long?”

“That’s Jemma’s call.”

“Is this safe?” Anna asks. “The last time we talked, you said they were making things personal. Are they tracking me? Will they track her? Will they track her _here_?”

“I don’t think so,” he answers, causing her to snort. He closes the distance between them to rest a hand on her hip. “In my mind, this is the safest place for her. If you want I can task a couple of agents—“

“No,” she says as she shakes her head. “I’m paranoid enough as it is; I don’t need to be constantly looking over my shoulder to see if someone is tailing me, even if it’s for my own protection.”

There’s a knock at the door and she automatically tenses. Phil’s thumb sweeps along her stomach, and he gives a small smile. “May. She had to stay behind and lock down the plane.”

By the time they make it out to the living room, Ward’s already let May into the apartment. She and Anna exchange nods before they both turn their attention to the young woman sitting on the end of the couch. Said young woman doesn’t miss all the eyes on her gives them all a disapproving look. “I’m not dying anymore. Enough with the pity looks.”

The corner of Phil’s mouth pulls up in the barest of smiles. “Jemma, make a list of what she can eat. Ward, get foodstuffs that will fit the bill. Fitz, check in on Anna’s security system and make sure it’s up to date. May—“

“Kitchen,” Anna mutters as it’s her turn to drag someone off for a private conversation. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Phil shrugs. “Taking care of a member of—“

“Am I your girlfriend or your safehouse manager?”

“Actually, it’s called—“

“Phil,” she grinds out. His chin rises at the interruption and she watches his jaw tighten just a bit. “What’s eating you?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Anna tells him. “You’re treating me like one of your agents—you’re not fine.” She reaches out to take his hand, but he steps past her and back out to the living room.

She spends the next ninety minutes watching them all buzz around like they own the place. She tries to swallow her anxiety about it all, but instead ends up leaving thirty minutes early for work. After half-assing her way through an afternoon concert, Anna walks back home and fights the temptation to take the super scenic path.

When she returns, May and Ward are gone to prepare for departure. Phil stands with his back against a wall to watch Fitz, Skye, and Simmons chat on the couch. He tries to smile at her when she walks in, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “We’re going to head out,” he announces as he pushes himself away from the wall. 

“You could stay,” she offers, but he shakes his head.

“My boss is probably going to want to chat with me about the last couple of days.”

“Probably? You don’t know for sure?” His head tilts to the side as he purses his lips, and she can’t suppress the urge to roll her eyes. “Go,” she sighs.

“I’ll call,” he promises as he leans in to kiss the corner of her mouth. He steps around her and gives the order to his two scientists that it’s time to go.

“Actually, sir,” Jemma stammers, “I think it would be best if I stayed here.” Both men’s eyebrows rise at the declaration. “Just in case something happens, I believe it would be better if I were nearby instead of leaving Anna responsible for Skye’s medical care. I mean, we wouldn’t want her to end up in the hospital, and then have to try and explain why she has an unknown drug in her system—“

“Because you’re so good at lying, it wouldn’t be an issue if you had to do it,” Fitz murmurs.

Phil waves them both quiet before looking at Anna. “You okay with this?” 

She bites back a sarcastic comment about not having a choice and nods. “As long as Jemma doesn’t mind sleeping on the couch; I don’t have a third bed.”

“Jemma doesn’t need a bed,” Fitz tells them. “She barely sleeps. Pretty sure she rejuvenates herself by reading journal articles.”

“That’s mostly true,” the biochemist agrees.

Phil gives a small shrug. “Okay, then. Let me know when you’re ready to be picked up.” And with that, he and Fitz are gone.

Anna locks the door behind them and turns back to the two on the couch. “So what’s the plan?”

“I think I need to go back to bed,” Skye admits. She shakes her head as Jemma opens her mouth to inevitable start a series of question. “I’m exhausted.”

“You need help getting settled?” Anna asks.

Skye shakes her head, but Jemma stands and offers a hand to help her up anyway. The scientist helps her friend up from the couch with a touch so gentle that Anna feels like it’s an invasion of privacy just watching. The pair slowly makes their way to the guest bedroom, and once the door is shut behind them, Anna takes a deep breath.

When she looks down at her hands, she realizes they’ve finally given into shaking. She’s shocked they held out this long. Contemplating the prescription bottle of anti-anxiety medication in her kitchen cupboard, she instead grabs for a bottle of pinot noir and one of her obscenely large wine glasses. By the time Jemma quietly emerges from the bedroom, Anna’s on her second glass. “Want some?” she asks.

The young woman sighs as she sits on the stool in front of the kitchen counter. “I suppose a nightcap wouldn’t hurt. Not that I’ll need much help falling asleep tonight.”

Anna wants to argue that the worry in Jemma’s eyes suggests her last statement is a lie, but lets it go. “You okay?”

“It’s been a rough few days,” she answers without making eye contact.

Anna gnaws on her bottom lip for a second before changing the focus of her question. “What’s up with Phil?”

“I’m not sure,” Jemma answers before taking another drink. “He shouted at me not to administer the drug that saved Skye, but it was too late. The look on his face…” Her eyes grow big for a second, and her shoulders rise as she pushes away her half-empty glass. “I don’t think I should be discussing these things with you. I mean, I know you have a relationship and all, but he’s my boss—“

“I understand,” Anna says. The air is quiet between them for a few minutes while Anna finishes her glass. “I should find you a blanket and pillow, I guess. Do you need anything else?”

“I may have acted rashly when deciding to stay here, since I don’t have anything with me.”

Anna crooks her head towards her bedroom. “Come raid my closet. And tomorrow, you can go shopping.”


	3. Pre-Yes Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the show is on hiatus for the next couple of weeks, I'm doing a chapter that takes place before the latest episode of "Yes Men" and one that will take place after. This is the before.
> 
> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for the beta.

Anna loses herself in the progression of the chords, finding a counter melody to the song blaring from the sound system. She tries to focus on that and not the lyrics, because those hit too close to home at the moment—which is probably why her fingers not-so-randomly selected the song from her iPod.

She doesn’t hear him come in and she immediately regrets giving him a key. When the song finishes, he’s sitting a few feet away in the armchair.

“Patty Griffin?” Phil asks. “You must be really pissed with me.” 

“I’m not the only one,” she fires back and she stands to turn off the music and replace her cello and bow on their display stand in the corner. “Jemma was getting annoyed with your lack of information. Ward and May couldn’t even tell me where you were when they came to pick up the girls. Not because of something being classified, but because they honestly didn’t know.”

Phil purses his lips before answering. “I’m taking personal time. It’s not their business.”

“Apparently nothing is anyone’s business, especially mine,” she mutters.

His eyes flicker to the bag he brought with him. “If you don’t want me to stay here, I can go get a hotel—“

“Good,” she interrupts before stalking to the kitchen. Loudly, she bangs around, pulling out a saucepan and ingredients to make dinner. She’s had nothing but soup for the last few days since that’s all Skye could eat, and she’s desperate to sink her teeth into something substantial.

She’s also desperate for her boyfriend to stop being a secretive jackass, but lacks a recipe for that particular dish.

“I guess I’ll go,” he says from the living room.

“Okay,” she answers as she drizzles olive oil in the saucepan. She reaches for a knife, cutting board, and a clove of garlic. Before she can start mincing, she hears footsteps approach, and she whirls to face him, taking a small amount of pleasure in the way his eyes bug at the sight of a blade pointing at him. “No,” she says before he can open his mouth. “I’m not falling for whatever sob story and pathetic, broken facial expression you’re going to make. Not again.”

“Falling for it? You think everything I’ve told you is a lie?” he asks, his voice growing louder and giving into frustration.

She puts down the knife and turns off the burner. “I think you’ve told me only what you want, even though you swore there wouldn’t be secrets between us anymore. And since then, all you’ve done is ducked out of my sight, refused to answer questions, only talked on your terms, and dropped your team members off at my door like I’m running a hotel.”

“You can’t know this, Anna. Not this part,” he tells her quietly.

She shakes her head. “Then I can’t know _you_. Because whatever this thing is, it’s consuming you. And if you won’t let me near it, then you won’t let me near you.” She pauses to consider if the next words should actually be spoken; her gut tells her to go for it. “And if you won’t let me in, then what is the point of this?”

“It’s not that I can’t tell you ever, it’s just that I need to find some more answers—“

“Phil, you’re never going to find all the answers. Never. You know this. And, besides, I thought you found whatever miracle drug it was that saved you. That’s what Jemma said. What could be so awful as to cause you to have more questions about it?” A darkness creases his face for a moment, but she doesn’t give in to the compulsion to soothe him.

He sighs before repeating slowly, “I can’t tell you—“

“Then you can leave,” she says before turning back towards the stove. As she minces her garlic, she watches him out of the corner of her eye as he stands there slightly gobsmacked. She knows exactly what to say to make him actually leave, but doing so might make this the last time she ever sees him. Anna thinks about the way he’s left her sleepless with worry, how she’s had to fight to keep her hands from shaking at rehearsal the last two days, and how infuriating it is to be stuck in a relationship where you can’t talk all over again.

“I was wrong,” she tells him quietly. “You aren’t the same man you were. And I hate it. I want my Phil back, not this shell he’s been replaced with. At least then you’d have the decency to apologize for being a secretive asshole.”

“Anna, if you knew what I knew and had gone through what I did, there’s no way you’d be the same either.”

She shrugged. “Guess I’ll never know since you won’t say a damn word about it.”

“Anna—“

“I said you can leave,” she snaps. He stands there for a minute more before she hears him grab his bag and walk out the door. He locks it before walking away, and she absentmindedly wonders if he’ll give back the key.

She goes back out into the living room to turn music back on while the garlic simmers, and if she happens to look out the window to watch him get into his beloved car and drive off, she’ll just lie and say she was looking to see if it was raining. Because it feels like it should be raining.

Once she’s done with dinner, Felix walks around the apartment crying. She puts up with it for ten minutes before snapping at him. “They’re gone,” she tells him. “The girls left, and they’re not coming back.” It doesn’t stop him whatsoever, so she turns up the volume of her TV, but that only pisses him off more. His cries amp up in volume, and she rolls her eyes. “Get over here.” He takes his sweet time walking over the couch and jumping up to curl up against her side. “They left,” she repeats. “People like that are always going to leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song referenced in the story is ["Rain" by Patty Griffin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFbjE7NFmUI).


	4. Post-Yes Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there's another week of reruns, there will be another chapter after this before we fall back into the missing scene territory for episodes. Hopefully I don't write myself into a hole.
> 
> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for her faithful help.

Anna hears the chime of an incoming Skype conversation and doesn’t bother to look at the caller ID before swiping open the call. “What’s going on, Brandon?” she asks without looking up from making notes on her sheet music.

“Who’s Brandon?” a female voice asks from the iPad.

Anna looks up sharply from the pages around her to see Skye looking back at her. “My nephew,” she answers. “You’re not him. And I don’t recall giving you my number.”

“Technically, it’s a username,” Skye replies. “And you didn’t, but, like finding you is the most challenging thing I’ll have to do all week.” She bites her bottom lip for a second before speaking again. “I need to ask you a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Will you please kiss and make up with your boyfriend so we can have our boss back?”

Anna sighs, and her head falls back against the sofa for a moment. “How bad is he?”

Skye shrugs. “He’s not, and that’s what’s weird. He keeps smiling and acting like everything’s fine, but there’s no way it is. I know it’s not. He’s told me so.”

“What did he say to you?” The question is out of Anna’s mouth before she can stop it. She shakes her head. “Don’t tell me that. If he wanted me to know, he would tell me. Or at least, that’s what he led me to believe.” She pauses to huff a bitter breath. “’You’ve seen my plane, you’ve met my team…’ Sorry.”

Skye gives her a sympathetic smile. “At least one of you is reacting properly.”

“Skye,” Anna sighs, “it’s not going to work. We shouldn’t have tried it a second time.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Skye ignores Anna’s snort and pushes on. “Look, the latest thing we had deal with? This crazy Asgardian chick—“

“Asgardian?” Anna asks as her stomach turns to ice.

Brown hair waves back and forth as Skye shakes her head. “No, not that Asgardian. No one was stabbed. Well, Ward did some stabbing… with a spear… but it was more of the phallic kind.” When Anna doesn’t respond, Skye blurts, “Ward banged an alien.” The young woman tilts her head to the side and half-squints her eyes. “Actually, you might…”

“Might what?”

Skye blinks and makes a surprised, little face. “Nothing. Just, nothing. You might nothing.”

Anna begins to massage her temples as she feels a headache flaring back to life. “Skye, is there something—“

“What I was going to say about this Asgardian chick is that she had this power to make men do her bidding. The only guy around here who didn’t fall for it was Coulson.”

“Maybe he’s smarter than that.”

“Maybe no other woman could compare to you.”

Anna laughs at that—hard. “I really don’t think that’s the case.”

Skye shrugs like a smug smartass. “You have your ideas, I have mine.” Her face softens for a second. “But I really think you two should get back together. Or he could hook up with Sif…”

“Sift?”

“ _Sif_ ,” Skye repeats, emphasizing the final letter. “She’s one of Thor’s pals. Coulson had a major boner for her.”

“Umm, okay,” Anna stutters, “I don’t think—“

“Look, I really doubt he acted on anything. Although, if you’re into threesomes—“

“Skye,” Anna warns with a sharp tone. “What do you want?”

“For you guys to be happy,” she answers with a soft voice and small shrug.

Anna feels her heart lurch and tries to ignore the pain she’s been pushing down since Phil left. “I don’t think that’s possible, at least not with the two of us together. Maybe not even for us separately.”

The awkward pause that follows is ended by Felix waking up from his nap on the guest bedroom bed and following the sound of Skye’s voice. He jumps up onto the coffee table where the iPad is propped up and paws at it while mewling at Skye’s face.

“It’s a screen, Felix,” Anna sighs. “It’s not really her.” But neither the cat nor Skye listen to her. Instead, the young woman holds her finger up in the air and darts it around for Felix to paw at. Anna uses the distraction to try and collect her thoughts. Her mind has been preoccupied with Phil since he walked out of her apartment. She knows there’s a handful of e-mails he’s sent, but she can’t bring herself to read them. He’s tried to call twice, but only one of those did she truly ignore; the other came in the middle of a dentist appointment.

She misses him; she’s willing to admit that much. Maybe not out loud, but she can at least say it to herself, and isn’t that one of those twelve steps or whatever? She nearly opened his e-mails a dozen times, but what for? He’s still a secret spy, and she’s still tired of that lifestyle.

“Earth to Anna,” she hears, and she shakes her head.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

Skye shoots her an almost infuriating look of sympathy. “You okay?” she asks quietly.

“You’ve seen my healthy stockpile of booze, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety meds. Rarely do I get to fall under the category of ‘okay.’ But you look better. How are you doing?”

“Simmons stopped drawing my blood every five minutes to try and recreate the drug that saved me, so I’m feeling less like a buffet for vampires, or at least one vampire in particular. And she’s even letting me try solid foods tomorrow. I know she means well, but she can be kind of a pain in the ass as a doctor.”

“She cares for you,” Anna points out gently. Skye brushes it off with a shrug, and Anna finds herself biting her tongue. She remembers being in her early-twenties and her mind being a little dense. It’s how she wound up with her husband.

Skye looks over her shoulder for a second before turning back to the screen. “Sounds like a meeting time. Want me to tell him you said hi?” Not trusting herself to speak for fear of the wrong, or maybe the right, thing coming out of her mouth, Anna just shakes her head. “Okay,” Skye says. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Before Anna can argue that that’s probably not the best idea, Skye disconnects the call. It leaves Anna wondering how she’ll not only effectively break things off with Phil, but also his entire little spy family.


	5. In Between 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of where I just put an insert scene of my choosing into the story. Expect this often over the summer.

Anna sits down the table with a sigh. “I’m supposed to be meeting Skye for dinner.”

“Jemma was supposed to join me,” Phil replies.

“I think we’ve been parent trapped.” When he gives her an odd look, she explains. “ _Parent Trap_? Old movie with Haley Mills, surely you’re ancient enough to remember it.”

“I’m only forty-nine.”

“Still ten-and-a-half years older than me.”

The restaurant is one they’ve always talked about dining at, but never having the chance to go to. It’s one of those places where you overpay for ridiculously small portions in one of the fancy hotels downtown; that should’ve been Anna’s first sign that something was up, because even though Skye’s diet is still limited, she’s heard stories about the young woman’s ferocious appetite.

They avoid further conversation by burying their noses in the menu. Their waiter comes for drinks and Phil orders a bottle of red that he knows Anna loves before selecting an appetizer. “Are we going to actually talk about this?” he asked softly. “Are we done? I’ve sent emails and—“

“I know,” she interrupts as she sets down her menu. “I just—“

“You don’t want this lifestyle again,” he supplies for her.

Anna nods. “But I also know how hard it is to move on from you.”

His fingers reach out to brush against hers for a second before they signal for the waiter. He orders a meal for each of them and instructs for everything—wine, appetizer, main courses, and a dessert of the waiter’s choice—to be sent to his room. Phil takes Anna’s hand and leads her out of the restaurant. “Where are we going?” she asks.

“My room.”

“I have an apartment.”

“Does it have room service?” he questions with a slightly smug smile.

“Fine, you win.”

Anna is expecting to walk into a suite swarming with camera feeds and audio from planted listening devices playing, but instead it’s just your typical single room with a king-sized bed. Her apparently lonely brain flashes memories of the times they’ve put a bed that large to use. Phil’s hand resting lightly on the small of her back to help steer her into the room doesn’t help matters.

Once they’re both inside, Phil pulls out what looks like a pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He pulls the cap off of it to reveal a glowing green tip. Sitting the device on the desk, he walks over to make sure the blinds are securely closed over the lone window. “If you want to know the truth,” he says as he turns toward her, “I’ll tell you.”

Her stomach drops and her tongue grows thick. Even though she’s been complaining about his secrets, there is so much truth in the phrase _ignorance is bliss_. Anna nods before she realizes she’s doing it, and he motions for her to sit on the bed.

Phil points to the not-pen. “It will block anyone from listening in on us.”

“Is someone trying to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he answers after a slight hesitation.

“Am I in danger?” she asks again.

He rolls his lips before responding. “I don’t know anymore. The next step we’re taking as a team involves going after someone or something known as the Clairvoyant.”

“That doesn’t sound foreboding at all,” she mumbles.

Phil smiles at that. “Whoever it is, they know things. And I know for a fact that they know about you and our relationship. Things that I didn’t think anyone outside of this room knew about.” That turns her stomach to ice, and she clings to Phil when he reaches out to take her hand in his. “But that’s not the secret I want to tell you about. You sure you want to hear about this?”

“Yes,” she tells him quietly, because as much as it terrifies her, she needs to know.

“When Skye was shot, we took her to a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical facility where they told us she had hours to live. That was unacceptable to me, so I began digging through the medical file about how I was brought back. Jemma found the name of a drug, and she and Fitz found where it was housed. I led a team to retrieve the medication…” His robotic retelling of the falters, and she squeezes her fingers around his. “I found the drug and got it to Fitz. The people protecting the facility set off a self-destruct sequence. I had little time, but I needed to know where this came from. I followed the tubes to some sort of chamber.”

“And?” Anna prods.

Phil shakes his head. “All I know is that it was blue and not human.”

Anna’s laughter starts out as a giggle before moving into something more. “You’re telling me that you were brought back to life by some character out of a James Cameron movie?”

“I’m being serious, Anna.”

“So am I. Don’t you think whoever—“ She pauses to give an ineloquent wave of her hand. “—thought you’d do exactly that? Maybe they set something up like this. Maybe it’s a sick joke or a distraction by this Clairvoyant person.”

“Two men died in the explosion.”

“And we both know men have died for less.”

He rises from the bed and begins to pace with a sigh. Before he can say anything else, there’s a knock and a voice announces room service. Anna watches Phil go through a series of checks before he waves her out of sight; a moment later, the room smells like culinary heaven. They eat and drink on the bed, the only sound in the room is an episode of Jeopardy. Between bites, one of them might call out an answer, but for the most part it stays quiet. 

Once the plates are empty, they find themselves sitting next to each other, backs resting against the headboard. “So, are you part alien now or something?” Anna asks.

“Maybe, I don’t know.” He sighs and runs a hand over his face. “I’m really sick of only having those three words as an answer.”

“You’re not, I don’t know, growing scales or turning colors or anything.”

“No,” he says with a soft smile. “Still me, at least physically.”

Anna feels a sharp stab to the gut for his words, and her own, on this matter. “Phil, I—“

“If you’re done, can we just be done? Because this limbo thing is killing me.”

“I don’t want to be done,” she tells him. “Besides, now that you’ve brought your wayward spy children into the picture, it would be even more difficult to have a clean break.” His face hardens in doubt at her words, and she reaches over to take his hand once more. “If you’re willing to let me in, I’m willing to stay. But that’s how it has to be.”

He nods. “Okay. I’ll do my best, but I also want to keep you safe. There may be some things—“

“I understand that, and I appreciate it.” She stares at the calluses on the fingertips of her left hand a moment before asking, “You’re sure there’s not anything weird or whatever with you?”

“Not anymore than usual,” he answers with a hint of a dopey grin. Anna rolls her eyes at that. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, as I see it, there are two options for us at the moment. The first, being cheeseburgers because while that dinner was delicious, it didn’t put a dent in my hunger.”

“And the second?”

She shrugged. “Good luck on your mission sex? Make up sex? Hotel room sex? We haven’t slept together since before you died and I miss it and you sex? I mean, Phil, king size bed. Take advantage of the surroundings and the lonely, horny woman throwing herself at you.”

“That’s a lot of variations of sex.” Though his tone is typical of his dry sense of humor, she doesn’t miss the way his pupils have blown, making his eyes turn nearly black. “And as you like to remind me, I’m much older than you.”

Anna smiles back at him. “So pick one and we’ll save the rest for later.”

“Cheeseburgers after?”

“Dear god, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And in case you've heard of the casting of Amy Acker for an important role of the show (and even if you haven't), I'm still going to keep true to my idea of Anna. Can't promise that idea won't be influenced by what happens on the show, but here's to hoping the Cellists have a lot in common.


	6. Post-End of the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was really difficult to write after seeing Cap 2 last night and not trying to work in certain developments. Looking forward to where things go with the show from here on out. 
> 
> Thanks, as always, to **the_wordbutler** for the beta.

Anna’s phone rings as she walks home from rehearsal. “Could it be?” she asks as she answers the call. “My fictionally named boyfriend is on my caller ID?”

“You’re hilarious,” Phil replies.

“I really am. So you made Skye an agent?”

“You know about that?”

Anna rolls her eyes, even if he can’t see her do it. “Phil, she texted me a carefully cropped picture of her holding her badge with a series of smiley faces—not all of them that I understood—ten minutes after you knighted her or whatever.”

“She needs to do a better job at keeping things quiet.”

“Please, we both know if anyone is going to squeal like a pig on your team, it’s Jemma. There’s kind of no hope for that girl.” He doesn’t joke back with her, but instead sighs. “You sound tired.”

“I think we got him,” Phil says quietly.

“ _Him_ him?”

“Yeah,” he breathes. 

“Are you going to use him to expose others? Are there others? Do I still have to carry my gun with me?”

“No, I don’t know, and it’s up to you. He was killed during the capture.”

She hears the off tone in his voice and she can’t help but to pry. “Sounds like you didn’t agree with that call.”

“There wasn’t a call that was made,” he confesses. “Ward just shot him in the chest.”

“Doesn’t seem like that would be something he’d do without orders.”

Phil’s quiet for a second before admitting, “The guy was making threats about Skye.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t do the shooting, then.”

“The thought crossed my mind, but I wasn’t going to compromise things. We were ordered to capture, not kill.”

She wants to mock his Boy Scout sensibilities but bites her tongue. “I thought you’d sound happier.”

“I don’t know,” he sighs. “It feels off somehow. Like it was all too easy, too neat.” She stays quiet and lets him talk his way through his thoughts. “I keep thinking about what you said when I told you about what I found—how it could’ve been set up. Some tailor-made distraction to push me away from the truth.”

“Do you think that’s what the big blue guy was?”

“No,” Phil answers. “But this might be.” The line goes silent for a second more. Anna tries to think of something to say, but all the words sound trite. “I think I should go,” he tells her. “We’re on our way to somewhere, I’ve got extra agents everywhere on the plane, but I just wanted to let you know.”

“Is Grant going to be okay?”

“That’s not my call.”

She wants to ask if he’ll stick up for the agent, but remembers there are two very distinct sides to the man she loves. While Phil probably would, she is less sure about Agent Coulson. But thankfully, she’s not dating that version of him.

Yes, she technically knows she is, but denial is a lovely thing, so she lets it slide.

“Talk to me when you can,” she says before he ends the call.

When she walks into the apartment, Felix whines to share his sadness in her interrupting his alone time. She ignores the cat and moves to the bedroom. Promising herself that she’ll only lay down for twenty minutes before getting dinner started, she curls up in bed. 

She hasn’t slept well lately, but can’t put her finger on a distinct reason why. There are dark dreams at the edges of her memory when she wakes, which is not something entirely new. She has her series of recurring dreams: David dying in front of her, going to his grave and finding out he had another wife, the car accident that killed her mother when she was five, and any number of vague shadows that haunt her. But this one feels different and new. 

When she falls asleep this time, she sees what her new nightmare is. The room is dark and she can hear someone breathing. Yellow eyes glow in the dark to stare her down. She’s frozen in fear, too scared to even blink. The thing comes out of the shadows slowly and stalks towards her. Once it leaves the corner of the room, there’s barely enough light present for her to make out gray, slick skin. It is inhuman and terrifying, but her fear only ramps up when she realizes that the alien has Phil’s face.

Anna sits up in bed with a jolt, which sends Felix out of the room in terror. It takes a minute for her breathing to calm down. She thinks about how she originally laughed at the notion of Phil having some kind of alien whatever in him. But now, she realizes part of her didn’t find it so funny.

She grabs her phone and calls him back, but it goes straight to voicemail. She doesn’t bother leaving a message; she knows he’ll passive aggressively gripe at her later for that. Curling in on herself, she thinks back to when she spent four days in the fetal position sobbing as she tried to process his death. Part of her feels like he’s died all over again with the reveal of the news, like he’s been stabbed—

Her brain breaks off at that thought as she realizes she’s never seen his scar, and that she doesn’t even know if he has one. Did the alien magic wipe that away, too? Does his scar hurt? She reasons he must still have one since even when they slept together at his hotel, he never took his shirt off. Anna’d chalked it up to male brain in sex mode and him not wanting to waste any more time to get down to business. 

Anna’s imagination immediately takes off with what the scar could look like and how it’s marred his freckled skin. She knows there can be pain associated with scar tissue and wonders if it plagues him. Her hand moves of its own volition and she stops her fingers seconds before they redial his number. If he sees two missed calls from her within five minutes, he’ll think the end of the world is coming. She knows he’s busy with work and the possible actual end of the world and doesn’t want to interfere. But it doesn’t make lying in bed spinning horrific thought after horrific thought any easier.


	7. Turn, Turn, Turn

David’d called it her gut, her father’d said she had some weird ESP thing, and her preacher of a brother-in-law describes it as the gift of discernment. Whatever the thing is, it’s Anna’s super power. It always lets her know two things: when she’s being lied to, and when some serious shit is about to go down. As soon as Phil ended the call before her nap, it’d kicked into high gear. She tries to chalk it up to the disturbing dream she had of her boyfriend becoming an alien, but it doesn’t go away.

Anna tries to call Phil back before she goes to bed that night. He’d called that afternoon to discuss Ward shooting a man who could possibly have been the Clairvoyant, she’d had her nightmare, and then she’d made the mistake of watching back-to-back episodes of a murder mystery show. By the time she crawls back between the sheets, she’s uneasy about everything and just wants to hear Phil’s voice. Even if he’s only going to talk about droll things like the weather wherever they are or how many unpronounceable ingredients are in the frozen meal he was rationed.

But he doesn’t answer.

She’s good this time and leaves a voicemail. “Just wanted to say hi. I watched the murderer TV show in the dark again, and we both know how that turns out. Still sorry about the time you came home and I nearly took you out with a frying pan.” She pauses for a second to debate whether or not she should ramble or just end the call. She elects the latter. “Hope your day got better, or at least less confusing. Love you.”

* * *

Felix wakes her in the middle of the night to knead at her stomach until it’s desirable enough for him to sleep on. She refrains from cursing at him when her brain suggests she check her phone. The only alerts she has are coupons for the boutique down the street and the email forwards her former father-in-law sends like clockwork every night. She deletes all the messages without reading them.

Her thumbs open her new text message app on their own accord. Skye coded it, and it’s supposed to allow private, untraceable messages to be exchanged between her and the team.

It’s not until it’s open that Anna realizes she hasn’t heard from anyone in the last twelve hours. Skye and Jemma have been regularly texting her about randomness over the last week. 

She tries to roll over and convince herself it’s nothing. All she gets for it is a pissed off cat.

* * *

Anna wakes at six, two hours before her alarm goes off. She knows she had bad dreams, but can’t place what exactly they were. And if they were recurrences of Phil as an alien, she doesn’t want to remember them. Again, her phone is message-free save for next month’s symphony schedule. 

Realizing that she has no hope in getting any more sleep, she gets out of bed and showers. Taking advantage of her extra time before rehearsal, she walks to her favorite coffee shop. It has the added benefit of being an hour away by foot, and she uses the time to make up details about the people she passes on the sidewalk. 

The coffee only adds to her anxiety, not that she was really expecting any other outcome. 

Giving in, she sends a short text to Phil: _I’m officially nagging now. Nag._

He doesn’t respond.

* * *

They’re halfway through rehearsal when one of the trumpet players lets out a gasp. The annoyed conductor asks what’s the matter, and the musician—Kyle—sheepishly owns up to having Google alerts set up for all the Avengers. “It looks like Captain America is being arrested.”

There are a handful of gasps, and Anna’s blood runs cold. She’s one of seven people in the room who was in New York when the Chitauri attacked, but everyone has a bit of hero worship for the team of people who saved the city from aliens. 

The conductor sees that he’s not going to get attention back on the Bach piece any time soon, so he gives them a fifteen minute break. Anna gets up and heads backstage. Digging her phone out of her purse, she logs on to the first news site she can find and goes eerily still when she sees the picture of Captain Rogers, the man she’s heard Phil tell endless stories about.

Shakily, her fingers back out to the main menu and she calls Phil’s number once again. It goes to voicemail.

“I need you to tell me you’re okay. I need you to call or text or send smoke signals or something. Just one word to let me know you’re alive, Phil, please.” She pauses to look around to make sure no one is around her. “The internet has pictures of Captain America on his knees with a rifle pointed at the back of his head. The reports are saying that your redhead was there and she was arrested, too. I know you’re not with them—at least I don’t think you are—but I really need you to call me back or something. Please.”

She hates herself a little for how obviously she’s begging by the end of the message, but she can’t help herself. Her gut-ESP-discernment-whatever is screaming that something has gone horribly wrong, and she’s utterly powerless in doing something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've reached a number of followers on my tumblr that is divisible by 50, which can only mean one thing: drabble prompts. [Go here for details.](http://saranoh.tumblr.com/post/82474622645/drabble-prompts-are-open)


	8. Taken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I veer off the tracks a bit. Still working with the same basic storyline, but changing events slightly. Maybe this will go back to being a strictly post-ep/missing scene story, maybe not. Depends on what my characters tell me.
> 
> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for cleaning up my words and pushing me off the beaten path.
> 
> Warning for kidnapping, threats of violence, and actual attacks.

The knock comes as she doing dishes from her dinner, which wisely consisted of ice cream and wine. What else are you supposed to consume when your boyfriend is now, at least according to some news networks, part of a terrorist organization?

Her eyes dart to her purse, but she leaves her gun inside the bag. Anna pulls her door open to reveal Grant standing on the other side of it. He looks a little worse for wear, but any member of the team is a welcome sight to her. “What are you doing here?” Anna asks. “Did they let you go for shooting the Clairvoyant?”

“Yeah,” he answers quickly, “turns out it wasn’t really him. Have you talked to Coulson?”

“No, have you?”

He nods as he steps into her apartment and closes the door behind him. “He wants me to take you to him. He’s not sure it’s safe for you here.”

The words mostly ring true to her, but there’s a niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach that makes the hairs on her neck stand on end. Or perhaps her red flag starts waving because she realizes that Grant has yet to say the safe word to let her know Phil really thinks it’s safe for her to travel with the agent in her apartment.

You make up some weird rules when you’re in a relationship with someone who works in the intelligence community, okay?

“Sure, just let me grab my bag,” Anna says. And either he hears a waver in her voice or she can’t be as calm as she would like at the moment, because as soon as she turns, there’s a gun muzzle pressed to her lower back.

“I need you to come with me.”

Anna hears the immediate change in his voice, like he’s dropped some act and revealing his true self. Taking a deep breath, she mentally reviews some of the hand-to-hand tactics David taught her long ago and figures what the hell. She quickly spins and catches the wrist of his gun hand in the crook of her left arm while her right elbow arcs up to nail him in the jaw. Her surprise attack only affords her two seconds to try and grab the gun from his hand before he shoves her away. She runs for her bag, but his hand grips her arm and yanks her toward him. Anna tries to twist out of his grip, but the last thing she sees is the butt of his gun flying toward her head before everything goes dark.

When she wakes, she’s in handcuffs that are chained to the metal table she’s sitting at. Her head throbs, and her first thought is wondering how she’s going to call in sick. She also desperately wishes she’d eaten something more substantial for dinner because her stomach won’t stop churning.

“So Sleeping Beauty is awake.”

The voice is a man’s but not one she recognizes. Anna barely manages not to groan as she lifts her head to look at him. He has short brown hair and wears a black turtleneck. “Who are you?”

He smiles at her, and it just makes her stomach feel worse. “My name’s John, but you’ve probably heard me called by my other title—The Clairvoyant.”

That instantly makes the muscles in her back tighten in fear. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you have,” he chuckles. “But it’s something your boyfriend has, so we’re using you as bait.” He looked her over and shook his head. “I know Phil could trend toward dumb when it comes to being all good and sweet, but getting this serious with a civilian is a new low.”

Anna wishes she’d learn how to spit in someone’s face, but sadly, she’d never picked up the trick. “He won’t give you whatever it is looking for.”

“Oh, I think he will,” John answers as he sits in the chair opposite her. “Especially since we’ve already sent him pictures of your bloodied face. And he definitely will when I start leaving calls every hour on the hour so he can hear you scream as I break each of your fingers.” He lightly runs his hands over her fingers, and she has to swallow bile. “He says you’re an incredibly talented musician. I sincerely hope you have a backup plan for your career.”

“Where’s Grant?” she asks.

“He had to run back to Coulson; need to make sure he keeps his good graces with the team, even though they don’t have a clue who he’s really working for.”

“I’ll tell him,” Anna says. “When you call Phil so he can listen to me scream? That’s what will be coming out of my mouth. I’ll tell him about Grant, and I’ll tell him not to come for me, that I’m not worth it.” She’s slightly afraid when she realizes how much truth is in that statement. But it shouldn’t be too surprising since she was raised by a father in the Army, married a soldier, and has been in a relationship with a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for the better part of the last few years. She knows one life isn’t worth the security of millions.

“Sweetheart, it’s cute that you think we don’t have gags.” He stands a pulls a rag out of his pants pocket and quickly sticks it between her teeth before knotting it behind her head. She feels her pulse race and her adrenaline spike, so she does her best to breathe calmly through her nose. “And,” John continues, “just in case you two have worked out some secret code—can’t be too careful with someone who likes to bed spies, trust me on that one—we need to make sure you’re not too coherent when I do call good ol’ Phil.” He pulls a syringe from the cabinet behind her and makes sure to show it off to her before pulling the plastic cap off the needle. “At the very least, you’ll be in a haze when I start breaking bones in your hand.”


	9. The Only Light in the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Easing our way back into post-episode/missing scene territory by explaining what happened in this slightly now AU version of the show.
> 
> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for the beta and serving as my sounding board.

Anna wakes to a killer migraine, throbbing pain in one of her extremities, and the need to bury her face in a trash can. Thankfully, someone helps her out with the last one. Whatever drug John gave her has yet to fully leave her system, and it causes her to spend her first few minutes of consciousness dry heaving into a wastebasket.

“Here,” Jemma says as she sets down the trash can and gives her a glass of water. Anna reaches for the drink, and her eyes catch on the bandages covering her right hand. The young doctor grimaces as she informs Anna, “We couldn’t get to you as soon as we’d hoped. Unfortunately, you have three broken fingers in your right hand.” 

Upon closer inspection of the bandaging, Anna sees that her right thumb and index fingers are unharmed. “Thank god,” she whispers.

Jemma’s eyebrows rise. “You’re grateful for broken fingers?”

“Bow hand,” Anna explains before taking a sip of the water to strengthen her voice. “If he’d done it to my left, I’d be screwed.”

The younger woman nods. “I lack the proper materials on this plane to make a cast, but as soon as we’re back to base, I’ll take care of it.”

“Why aren’t we on the usual plane?” Anna asks as she looks around.

“It was… damaged. It’s being repaired at the moment.”

“Are you all okay?”

“We’re fine,” Phil answers as he strides into the tiny cabin, Leo hot on his heels. Phil leans over to place a kiss on her forehead and run a thumb across her cheekbone. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“It was Grant,” Anna tells him. Phil’s head tilts a little to the side as he processes the information, and she hears Jemma sigh.

“You are still under the influence of the drugs—“

“It was Grant,” Anna declares while staring down the younger woman. They all stay quiet and she shakes her head. “One of the last things I remember—and I remember it clearly—is him saying he was sending Grant back to you guys to make sure he stayed in your good graces and you didn’t realize he was playing you.”

Jemma gives an incredibly forced and polite smile before turning toward Phil. “Sir, you really can’t believe that Agent Ward would do this, would you? He jumped out of a plan to save my life. It’s not possible he could be capable of doing something like this.”

“Unless he did that to earn our trust,” Leo suggests.

Phil’s lips purse into a hard line. He turns to his young subordinates and assumes his commanding tone of voice. “Tell Trip. Ward is supposed to be at the base with Skye and May, and if this is true, they need to be notified.” Once the scientists hustle out of the closet of a medical bay, he turns his attention back to Anna. “What happened?” Phil asks gently.

Anna sighs and out of habit tries to run her hand through her mess of brunette waves, but she is quickly reminded that her fingers are wrapped in bulky bandages. “He came to my door. Said you’d sent him to pick me up, that I was in danger. I hadn’t heard from any of you, so I didn’t really know he was lying to me.” She pauses to look up at Phil. “But then I remembered our safe word and how he was supposed to use it if the message was really from you.”

“He didn’t use it because I never told him what it was,” Phil explains.

Anna nods. “I tried to make some flimsy excuse to get to my purse where my gun was, but he saw through it. He put his gun to my back; I twisted and elbowed him in the jaw and tried to take away his pistol.” Phil shows the barest of smirks at that, and she rolls her eyes. “He pistol-whipped me, and the next thing I knew, I was handcuffed to a table and The Clairvoyant drugged me. What happened after that?”

“Garrett turned you over to one of the prisoners, a man who sucks up energy from anything and anyone around him and uses it as a weapon,” Phil tells her.

The thought of someone with that kind of power knowing she’s out there and could be used as bait makes her skin crawl. “What happened to him?”

Phil shrugs. “We sort of vaporized him.”

Anna’s migraine intensifies at that answer. “Why did I ever say life would be better with fewer secrets?” she mutters. Her brain is still a muddled mess, but one key thing finally sticks out in her mind. “Oh my god, Felix,” she breathes.

Phil places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “As soon as Garrett sent me the first picture of you, I posed as the super and called the cop on the second floor to check on your apartment. He took in your cat and had a team process your apartment. I already called for a cleaning service to come take care of things.”

“There’s a cop in my building?” Anna asks.

“There’s two, actually.” 

She sighs. “Phil, please tell me you haven’t run background checks on all of my neighbors.” 

“I wanted to make sure you were safe,” Phil says.

She holds her hand up to his face. “Maybe you should’ve been more worried about yourself than the people in my building.” He cringes and looks at his shoes. “I’m going to have to move. I can’t live in a place where I was taken at gunpoint.”

“I understand that,” he tells her.

“And I need for you to give me at least one good reason why I should tell you where my next place will be.”

That causes him to look back up at her, and there’s so much hurt in his eyes it twists her already knotted stomach almost to the breaking point. “I can’t give you a reason. I shouldn’t have sought you out after I died. The team, they thought it was a good idea. And so did I; I missed you so much. But it was obviously a mistake.” Hesitantly, he reaches once more for her cheek. “You don’t deserve this—any of this. I’m so sorry you had to go through it.”

She leans her face into his hand, anchoring herself in the contact. It’s the one thing in her world at the moment that is keeping everything else from consuming her. She wants to tell him that it’s okay, and say this isn’t his fault, but it is. And while she loves him so deeply it aches, she can’t let this become normal for her life.

“What can I do?” he asks.

Anna can’t frame an answer. Even without the drugs, her mind is too much of a mess. With whatever the Clairvoyant injected in her is swirling in her bloodstream, and her thoughts feel like the subject matter of a Dali painting. Everything is melty and wrong, but there is one thing that comes to mind.

“Take off your shirt,” she says.

His eyebrows rise. “Why?”

“Because ever since the night in the hotel, I’ve had nightmares about where you turn into an al—“

“Please don’t finish that word,” he interrupted. “May and Skye are the only other ones who know about that.”

Anna eyes flutter shut as she gives a somewhat bitter sigh. “Remind me of that when I’m not drugged. But I still want to see it. I didn’t put two and two together that you were trying to hide your injury from me until later.”

“You sure? You may not be in the best mental state for this.”

She laughs at that. “When am I ever in a _good_ mental state?”

Phil stares at her for a minute before he removes his tie and begins to unbutton his shirt. Just as she suspected, he’s not wearing an undershirt this time, and she mentally kicks herself for not questioning why he wore on the night they stayed at the hotel. Slowly, she swings her legs over the side of the gurney. Everything tilts for a second and she swears under her breath, but the dizziness subsides.

When she looks back up, Phil’s chest and face are equally bare. Her fingers reach out for the scar, but before she touches it, she waits for his okay. Phil gives one small nod, and instantly the fingertips of her left hand make contact. The ridge of raised skin is warm and paler than its surroundings. She hates that it’s on his body, hates that he has to see it every day. “This is what happened to you?”

“No,” he tells her quietly. “That’s the exit wound.”

It takes a minute for her to process that, and once the meaning of the words sink in, her stomach rolls again. As much as she hates her current situation, Phil doesn’t deserve this—he never could. Hot tears fill her eyes as she twirls her index finger in the air. 

“Anna,” he warns.

“Do it.”

His back—strong, freckled, and gorgeous—is now the home of a grizzly scar. She can’t help the gasp that comes with the sight of it. Closing her eyes, she learns the new terrain of his skin with her left hand. She had it all memorized before, but now must adjust to the changes. He lets her run her fingers over his back for a few minutes before stepping away and redressing.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

Phil shakes his head. “No. I actually feel better than before.” He pauses while adjusting his tie. “You had nightmares?”

Anna nods. “You turned into an alien—gray skin, yellow eyes.”

“I could have also been turning into your cat.” 

She snickers and shakes her head. “I hate this,” she admits quietly.

“Me, too.”

“It’s like we’re these two incomplete things that keep trying to smash into each other in hopes of making something whole. But every time we ram into each other, these little pieces break off and get left behind. And I don’t think either one of us can sacrifice any more of ourselves.”

Phil sighs. “I know. I don’t want to let you go, but I should.” Gently he takes her injured hand in his. “You don’t deserve this.”

“We could run away,” Anna tells him. “You were going to quit S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway. The organization’s in shambles. We could go somewhere and never look back, bring the kids with us if you want.”

“Kids?” he asks with a small smirk.

“You know what I mean. I could give lessons, and you could… What would you do?”

Phil gives a small shrug. “I could repair watches. Delicate work, specialized tools… could be fun.”

“You’re such a dweeb,” she says with a smile.

He grins back for a second—the little one that never fails to send a rush of something warm and comforting through her—but it quickly fades. “It can’t happen. I’m sorry, Anna, but I’ve literally given my life for this organization. And even if they can’t give me the answers I’m looking for, I owe it to them to help rebuild.”

Anna swallows hard before asking the inevitable. “So what about us?”

“That’s up to you. I can be an incredibly selfish man and would be willing to take whatever you’re willing to give, but I can’t ask a single thing from you. Not after this.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, and she probably shouldn’t say anything with the lingering drugs in her system. Instead, she struggles to stand and is grateful, not at all for the first time, that she fits perfectly with him—he’s just the right height for her to bury her face in his neck. His arms wrap around her to help her stay upright, and probably to hold her close, too. She feels a kiss on her head before he rests his cheek there.

They stay like that for a while, Anna relaxing against the comfort of his suit and the smell of his cologne. Eventually, there’s a knock, and Jemma sticks her head in to tell them they need to strap in for landing. Phil doesn’t pull away until she’s left. He keeps an arm around Anna’s waist and holds her good hand in one of his while they make their way out to the little cargo section. She feels Leo and Jemma’s eyes on her as Phil helps her buckle in with patience and tenderness. Once he is strapped in next to her, he turns his attention to his agents. “Any word on the team?”

Leo shakes his head. “Base is silent, and there’s no messages—at least for me and Jemma—from anyone.”

Phil nods sharply. “When we land, Trip and I will clear the hangar to make sure we don’t have any surprises waiting for us. You three will stay here until we give the all clear.”

“Fine by us,” Jemma says.

“Trip?” Anna asks.

“He was one of Garrett’s agents.” He reaches over to hold Anna’s hand and gives a small squeeze. “He’s clean, I’m sure. You don’t have to worry about him.” She nods, and he doesn’t let go of her hand until the plane stops moving.

A man Anna’s never seen before comes into the cargo hold a minutes after the engines go silent. “Sir?” he asks.

“You and I will sweep the hangar before giving the all clear for them to exit,” Phil answers.

Trip—at least that’s who Anna assumes he is—nods once and hesitates for a second before asking, “Ward? What’s his status?”

Phil’s eyes flicker to Anna before he answers, “Capture if you can, kill if necessary.”

“Yes, sir,” Trip answers. He turns to her briefly before they leave. “Sorry my boss is a dick.”

“Me, too,” Anna responds, and then they’re gone. Leo triggers for the exit ramp to close back up, and Jemma comes over to look her over.

“How are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” Anna answers.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Anna thinks about how horribly she’s slept in the last couple weeks—and how much worse it will be after this. “Sleeping pills would be nice.”

Jemma frowns for a second. “I can’t give you anything like that until the drugs are out of your system, and then I’d need to look at your anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications to know what you could take.”

Anna snorts. “Those could probably be upped, too.”

“Is there anything those of us without prescription pads could do?” Leo asks.

“No,” Anna answers. “Don’t worry about it.”

They sit in silence for a few more minutes before Phil’s voice crackles over the intercom that the hangar is safe. Leo lowers the ramp once more, and Jemma helps walk Anna out. As they come around the plane, they all see a large, open space in the hangar.

“Where’s the Bus?” Jemma asks.


	10. Nothing Personal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to **the_wordbutler** for cleaning up my words and cheering on this little story.

Melinda slides into the leather chair across from Anna and sets a bottle of water in front of her. “I’d give you something stronger,” she explains, “but Simmons told me not to.”

Anna nods. She reaches for the drink and gives a small smile of thanks to May for unscrewing the top for her. While Phil and Triplett’d tried to track down the team’s plane, Jemma had set Anna’s three broken fingers, hand, and right wrist in a cast. “I’d ask you what color you want, but this is a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, so all I have is black,” the younger woman had apologized. It’s bulky and already itches, and it will have to stay for at least six weeks. Whatever pain killers Jemma had given her are losing their edge, and Anna thinks it’s only a matter of time before she’ll clearly feel her pulse throbbing in her fingertips.

Anna and Melinda are the plane’s only two occupants. They’re en route from Ottawa to Portland where Anna will be reunited with her cat and pick up whatever necessities she needs before moving to New York. On the list of things she has to take with her are Felix, her two cellos, and a box that holds her most precious belongings: her engagement ring and wedding band, the dog tags from both her father and David, a small hospital ID bracelet, and the cufflinks she’d been planning on surprising Phil with before the Battle of New York. The items are all encased within a simple, wooden jewelry box; it’s the only thing Anna has that belonged to her mother. 

While Jemma had wrapped her cast, Anna’d managed to get a call to her boss, who’d told her she’d have to be let go due to her injuries. He’d said she could audition again once she’d recovered from being attacked, but Jemma had said it would take minimum four months for Anna to get back up to snuff. She’d briefly considered finding a teaching position in Portland, but then Maria Hill’d informed her there was an opening in New York.

“There’s a part-time teaching position open at NYU. And rumor has it Stark Industries needs a consultant for the musicians they hire for their soirees.”

Phil’d smiled at that. “Find a way to thank Pepper for me.”

This isn’t the first example of the CEO showing kindness to Anna. The two had met at Phil’s funeral, the same place Anna had met Maria. Pepper had consistently checked in on Anna every two or three months after she lost Phil. She had no reason to do so, but the woman kept saying that both she and Tony owed Phil their lives and that this was the least they could do.

Now the “least they could do” includes keeping Anna employed and giving her a place to live. It’s all incredibly sweet but also so very ridiculous.

Melinda sets her own bottle of water on the table. “I won’t be able to fly you to New York. Pepper is sending Happy Hogan to do that.” She pulls out a cell phone and shows Anna an image of a middle-aged man with short, curly hair. “This,” she continues while swiping to the next picture on her phone, “is the passcode to know that it’s really him.” Anna memorizes the short phrase and nods. “I can stay with you till he arrives if you want.”

“I appreciate that, but it’s okay,” Anna answers. “I’m due for an ugly sobbing session, and no one needs to be around for that. Besides, I’d rather you go help Phil.”

One of Melinda’s eyebrows quirks at that. “I’m not sure Coulson would agree with you.”

“He got played and he’s pouting about it. It’s nothing against you. You ever beat him at Monopoly?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Well, if you ever play him, just lose on purpose. I mean, don’t be obvious about it, but for everyone’s sake—just lose.” Melinda nods before her gaze turns toward the window. Despite the blank look on her face, Anna can tell a million things are racing through the other woman’s head. “It’s not your fault,” she tries on a whim.

“I should’ve known better,” Melinda says with a shake of her head. “I was distracted.”

“Happens,” Anna tells her. 

“You ever get a bad feeling about him?”

No one has spoken Grant’s name, not unless they’ve had to, not since Phil and Triplett had pulled a body from the ceiling and Jemma identified the killer. That whole part of the afternoon is fuzzy in Anna’s brain, and that’s okay with her. Her mind had only cleared up a bit when Phil’d hugged her goodbye on the Ottawa tarmac. 

“He reminded me of my husband,” Anna answers. Melinda’s head tips slightly at that, a silent invitation for her to continue. “I’m not saying my husband was an evil traitor or bad or anything at all, it’s just… Have you ever been married?”

“Once,” Melinda replies, and there is just enough venom in it to tell Anna that she can continue with her point.

“Marriages end. Sometimes it’s one person’s fault, sometimes it both people’s fault, and sometimes you can’t blame anyone. That’s what happened to David and me. We did everything we were supposed to do and it all just…” Her voice fades out, and she feels her eyes fill with tears. She takes a moment to get her emotions back under control because if she starts crying now, she won’t stop. “Even though we’d been dealt a blow that ended our marriage, we never divorced or anything, just existed around each other. We both drowned ourselves in our work, and the few times we were around each other and out in public, we both put on this mask. We promised everything was fine even though it was an obvious lie.” Anna pauses to take another sip of water. “When we were all in Phil’s apartment after he and I reunited, Grant stepped out of the room to take a call.”

Melinda nods. “Hill was calling him with new orders.”

“I had to go get something out of the bedroom, I don’t remember what it was, but Grant was distracted by the call and didn’t notice me. His face was like that—just blank, no feelings showing. And whenever he was around you guys, that near-perfect match of emotions slid back in place.” Anna shrugs. “I just assumed it was the job.”

The silence hangs in the air for a few minutes before Melinda turns her attention back on Anna. “What’s going on with you and Phil?”

Anna’s gut reaction is to be offended at yet another invasion of privacy, but she knows May asks out of worry. And she should. Phil’d told her he was sending her away because having her around would compromise him, and he couldn’t afford anymore weaknesses at the moment. He’d once again left the choice open to her if they should pursue their relationship anymore.

“But not until I get Ward and Garrett,” Phil’d said.

“And if you never get them?”

He’d only had a shrug for an answer. “I guess this is good—“

“No,” she interrupted. “We didn’t say that word the last time and I got you back. So we’re not saying it now.”

The kiss they’d then shared had been too short and not enough, but it was all they had. A minute later, Maria led Anna to a sleek, white plane. She hadn’t expected to find May as the pilot, but given Phil’s current opinion of Melinda, Anna’d understood why the women kept him in the dark about who would serve as pilot on the flight back to Portland.

“I don’t know,” Anna answers. “So keep him alive so I can figure it out, okay?”


	11. Ragtag

It’s four in the morning, and Anna is contemplating breaking open the bottle of wine Pepper gave her for to celebrate her new Stark Industries position. Maybe if she has a few glasses, she can at least get her mind to calm down enough to nap for a couple hours. Felix, who seems to be more content in New York than he ever was in Portland, sleeps soundly at the foot of the bed. Anna finds herself irrationally jealous of her cat.

She turns onto her side and punches the pillow with her cast-free hand. With a sigh, she once again closes her eyes and hopes for nightmare-free sleep. Instead, her new StarkPhone begins to ring. The number on the screen reads _Private_. Hesitantly, Anna swipes her thumb across the screen to accept the call. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Phil answers.

“Hi,” she breathes. “You okay?”

“Is it safe for us to talk?”

Anna looks around her bedroom. Tony had promised her complete privacy when he gave her the access code for the apartment within his tower, and Maria had sworn that also meant privacy from Tony. “I think so,” Anna says.

“Doesn’t sound like I woke you up.”

She sighs. “Sleep and I haven’t been the best of friends in the last couple of weeks.”

“Sorry,” Phil apologizes. 

“Not entirely your fault.”

“All new nightmares, or still some of the old stuff?”

Anna’s mind flips through the repertoire of nightmares: a peaceful life with a mother who hadn’t died when Anna was five, David dying all over again or having a secret family tucked away, a crying baby, and such warm and loving conversations with her father that when she wakes up and remembers he’s gone, it completely guts her. Then, there are the new hits from the last couple of years: losing Phil, having to move every two weeks and living constantly out of boxes, Grant coming after her, and Garrett breaking more than just fingers.

“A little bit of both,” she tells him.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes again.

Anna shrugs. “How are you? Maria told me you got Skye back.”

“Yeah, she’s safe,” Phil responds, and Anna smiles at the soft notes of pride and relief in his voice. She starts to ask where he is, but then she thinks of what’s happened because she knew too much. Despite that, Phil seems to read her mind. “We’re holed up in this dinky motel. Trip’s off getting supplies, and the rest of us couldn’t sleep. Skye talked us into watching this awful movie. She and FitzSimmons are in a giant knot on my bed. May’s asleep in hers. They all crashed after the movie turned into an infomercial. Do you know how many times in three minutes I had to tell Fitz that we weren’t going to buy him gloves with built-in flashlights?”

“He’s probably just going to build himself a pair, now.”

“Probably.” He tells her to wait a moment, and Anna listens to a muffled conversation, then there’s scratching sound as Phil’s phone is passed off.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice says.

“Skye,” Anna sighs. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, just… Go away, Coulson—girl chat time.” The line goes quiet for a minute before Skye admits, “I don’t know.”

Anna nods her head in sympathy, even though Skye can’t see her. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“I feel dumb. I just— How did we not see it? And then he told me that even though he was lying the whole time, his feelings for me…”

Anna’s stomach twists for the younger woman. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“I’m so angry,” she professes. “I feel like an idiot, and then anytime any of us brings up what he did, Fitz makes up a never ending list of excuses for his actions, and it’s wrong. Ward isn’t playing a game; he’s evil.”

“Don’t get too mad at Leo,” Anna tells her. “He’ll live in the land of denial until his brain can make sense of things. I’m incredibly familiar with that mindset.”

Skye snorts in frustration. “Any way to make the game go faster?”

“No, so don’t push him. It’ll just blow up in everyone’s faces, trust me.” There’s a moment of quiet before Anna asks about Phil.

“He’s pissed,” Skye tells her. 

“I can tell that much even from this far away.”

“He just needs to get this put away, then he can think about something—anything—else. We’ll all be able to.”

Anna draws abstract shapes on the ridiculously plush bedspread with her good hand. “Any idea what you guys we’ll do after?”

“No,” Skye answers softly. “We can’t think that far ahead. You, uh, wanna talk to Coulson again?”

“Sure. And Skye, don’t beat yourself up over this.”

“Too late,” she mutters before passing the phone back to Phil.

“Think she’ll be okay?” Anna asks.

Phil sighs. “It’ll take time for all of us. So, what’s your new place like?”

Anna looks around her new living space which is sleek, simple, and has a recurring accent color of a familiar shade of blue, one that has a habit of showing up in most of Phil’s ties. There are built-in shelves in each room, space that could easily hold little trinkets or vintage spy devices. “Honestly?” Anna says. “I think this is supposed to be your place.”

Phil huffs a quick laugh. “I was dead before Stark started to retool the tower. Why would it be for me?”

“I don’t know, just a feeling. Pretty sure Tony doesn’t believe you’re dead. He also assumed I was Maria’s sister and then made fun of your taste in women, claiming you were just trying to date Hill without dipping your toes in the company pool.”

“You two don’t look that much alike,” Phil argues.

“Close enough.”

“Please don’t make me think too much about that.”

Anna smiles and then bites her tongue to keep words that shouldn’t be said right now from spilling out, words about how he should come to New York, how they should just say screw it and run away, how badly she misses him. This is the life she knew she was signing up for, one where she acts like there’s not a chance in hell that this won’t be the last time she speaks to him even though it absolutely could be.

“I’ve got to get up and get ready to teach in a few hours, so I’m going to try and fall back asleep.”

“I could talk to you for a while,” he says quietly.

The offer makes her heart seize. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s stayed on the phone talking about anything and everything until he’s sure she’s asleep. “That’s okay. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

“Okay. I don’t know when we’ll get to talk again.”

“I know.”

“I love you,” he says.

Anna commits the sound of his voice to memory and prays to anyone who might listen that it’s not the last time he says those words to her. “Love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt the need this week to find a visual analog for Anna. A google image search for lady cellists with long brunette hair, which led me to actual cellist [Natalie Clein](http://www.natalieclein.com/index.php). She has since become my mental image for Anna.
> 
> [This particular photo](http://www.natalieclein.com/files/galleries/2009/Clein09-01.jpg), which **the_wordbutler** dug up, spawned the "she looks like Maria and I bet people make fun of Phil for that" conversation.


	12. Beginning of the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though this was the season finale, I plan on updating throughout the summer. It might mean this is now completely deviating from the show, but oh well. **The_wordbutler** said it was okay, and she's always right.

Anna asks JARVIS to pause the music playing in the bathroom before she swipes her hand on a towel and picks up her ringing phone from the heated tile floor. She’s been traveling for the last three days to listen to various musicians, and all she wants is to sit in a dark bathroom and scald her skin off (minus her hand that is shrouded in plastic to keep her cast dry) with a searing bath. “Hello,” she answers. She’s scarily getting used to answering phone calls from unknown numbers.

“Hey,” Phil greets.

“You okay?” she asks. It’s been almost a week since he last called, and it’s taken all of Anna’s reserve to not ask Maria if she knows anything about Phil.

“I’m okay,” he answers. “Everyone with me is fine.”

“Yeah,” Anna replies. “Maria said Fitz was being brought here for Stark and his friend to help him. What happened?”

Phil sighs wearily, and Anna immediately regrets asking, wishing instead that she was ignorant to everything work-related in his life. “FitzSimmons were trying to track our plane before it left Cuba. Ward captured them and brought them on board, where they hid in a container compartment. Ward dropped it into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Oh my god,” Anna whispers in a mixture of anger, shock, and fear. “Please tell me they’ll be okay.”

“Fitz apparently could only build one breathing mask, and he gave it to Jemma.”

“Of course he did,” Anna mutters.

“Simmons pulled him to the surface, but he’s suffering from cerebral hypoxia—oxygen deprivation to the brain.”

“And Jemma?”

“She’s fine,” Phil reassures her. “She met back up with us a couple of hours ago.” He pauses for the briefest moment, and Anna hears a slight hesitation in his voice. “Would you mind seeing if you could check in on him and get word back to Simmons?”

“I’ll try, but wouldn’t you rather me tell you and then you can talk to her?” He sighs, and Anna feels her gut twist. “What now?” she asks. She knows her tone is impolite, but seriously, what could be worse after the last month of finding out that her boyfriend was saved by aliens, getting kidnapped, having her fingers broken, losing her job, and having to move across the country?

“You want the good news or the bad news first?” Phil replies.

“Bad,” she quickly answers.

“You have to know the good in order for the bad to make sense,” he tells her in an apologetic voice. “The good news is Garrett is dead.”

That pulls a sigh of relief from Anna’s chest. “You’re sure? Because you’re supposed to be dead, too.”

“I wasn’t blasted into a bunch of tiny little pieces.”

“Gross.”

“You’re not the one who had to clean him off your shoes.” Phil takes a breath before continuing with his update. “Ward’s in custody. He and May got into a scuffle; he’s not really able to talk anymore.”

“Good,” Anna replies. And she means it. If he can’t talk, then he can’t spread more lies. He’s done too much damage already, and the memory of his low voice tenses the muscles in her shoulders and neck. “So what are you going to do now? Maria said that she offered to let you come work with her.”

“About that…”

Anna knows from his tone of voice that he won’t be taking Maria up on her suggestion. She’s half-tempted to not-so-accidentally drop her phone into the bath, but Stark’s probably made the damn thing waterproof. “Yeah?”

“Turns out my old boss was about as dead as me. Ran into him, and he made me a job offer.”

She has to bite her tongue to keep a curt comment from falling out of her mouth. He has the right to do what he wants even if that doesn’t include her. He’s not beholden to her in any way. “What would that be?”

“He wants me to rebuild the agency from scratch. He named me Director.”

She’s out of the bath water in a flash, overcome with a need to pace. She manages to poorly wrap a towel around herself before she storms out into the bedroom, waking Felix from yet another nap. “Please tell me you said no.”

“Anna—“

“No, listen to me. Why are you going back to this? These people have lied to you, your best friends were traitors, S.H.I.E.L.D. got you killed.”

“They also brought me back.”

“And left you with unending questions, nightmares, fear, and you completely doubting your identity. Or do you not remember how broken you were when you sought me out?”

“Anna,” he sighs, “this is the only life I’ve ever known.”

She wants to call him a coward for not being brave enough to try something new, but it would be a lie. Because Phil Coulson is anything but a coward. This is the man who took on a god by himself without hesitation. He’s faced death a number of times; she knows this because she knows the scars on his body. He’s easily the bravest person she’s ever met.

“Were you really going to leave?” she asks quietly. “Before? When you said you turned in your two weeks’ notice?”

“Yes,” he tells her and she can hear the honesty in the statement.

She nods to herself, taking that in. “I want that Phil back,” she whispers and the hot tears she’s been trying to fight back spill over onto her cheeks.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” She shakes her head, and her anger at the entire situation—finding someone you love so deeply and never having anything work out—bubbles up and consumes her. “I run away from everything that hurts me. I can’t live in DC again, military uniforms make me want to hyperventilate, I will never step foot in Georgia for as long as I live. Anything that’s caused me the slightest bit of pain is immediately something I avoid—except you.” She pauses to try and contain a sob and shakes her head. “You’ve hurt me, a number of times and with deep cuts, but I still come back to you. I just thought that would mean something to you.” Her words feel petty, but they’re true and she can’t hide them anymore. She refuses to sweep them under the rug in order to protect him.

“Anna—“

“I have to go. And you have an intelligence agency to run, so this is probably for the best. I’ll see if I can find anything out about Leo and get word to Jemma.” She hangs up before he has a chance to respond and collapses on the bed.

The pain in her gut is torturous, one of the worst she’s felt in her life. She curls into a ball and pulls the bedcovers up over her. Felix cries and burrows his way under the covers to join her. She pulls him close and is grateful that she has at least one constant in her life.


	13. Mothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first of the summer hiatus chapters. Who knows how far away from the show I will be once September hits and the show comes back. But hopefully you'll enjoy the ride.

Anna steps off the elevator onto a floor of Stark Tower she has yet to visit. She doesn’t know if it’s her imagination or whether the air is actually filled with the scent of antiseptics, but either way, her stomach rolls. She hates hospitals, has for years; visiting them usually means going to a funeral a few days later.

She stops at the clerk’s desk and asks where she can find Leo. Once the woman verifies that Anna is on his visitors’ list, she directs her his room. Anna clutches the gift she brought for the young man tighter in her good hand as she tries to keep her breathing even. But her lungs refuse to function at all when she finds an empty bed in the room assigned to Fitz.

“He’s been taken to do more tests,” a soft voice lilts behind her.

Anna turns to find a woman about her height with tight brown curls. Her face and body posture scream exhaustion, and Anna knows exactly what that feels like. “You must be his mother.”

She nods and extends a hand, which Anna shakes as best as she can with her cast. “Bonnie Fitz, and you are?”

“Anna Ellis. Nice to meet you.”

“Are you part of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Or what’s left of it?”

Anna shakes her head. “Oh, no. I could never be an agent or anything, and I’m nowhere near as smart as your son.”

Leo’s mother gives a shy yet still proud smile. “Very few are.”

“True,” Anna chuckles.

“If you’re not part of S.H.I.E.L.D., then how do you know Leo?”

“The man who put him in the ocean was the same one who attacked me,” she explains, holding up her injured hand. “Leo was on the team who rescued me. I wanted to see how he was doing.”

It’s obvious that Bonnie is trying to put on a brave face, but there are deep cracks in it. “The good news is that he woke up from the coma.” Her eyes go a little blank as she looks at the empty bed. She’s probably imaging her son lying there, helpless and hurt. It wouldn’t take much work for her mind to conjure the image, Anna knows. It will be burned in the woman’s eyes for the rest of her life. “But once he woke, other… issues began to appear. He can’t remember what happened to him, which is probably for the best. He’s clumsy with his hands. But his arm is healing nicely. Broke it in the same two places as when he was a child, which is odd.”

Her eyes remain locked on the empty bed, and Anna looks down at her shoes. She doesn’t mind ferrying information back to Jemma, Phil, and the others on how Leo is doing, but being here in the medical section of Stark Tower twists her insides. 

“What’s his prognosis?” Anna asks.

“Doctor Banner said it was still too soon to tell.” She pauses at that and swallows. “I was about to get some coffee,” Bonnie says. “Would you like to join me?”

Anna wants to make some excuse, but she knows Phil wouldn’t be happy about that. He’d understand as best as he could, but he wouldn’t be happy. “Sure,” she answers anyway. She follows the other woman down the hall to a small lounge for families of patients, not that there are many here. At Maria’s suggestion, Tony’s brought a select number of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were injured during the internal fight with HYDRA. Maria didn’t bother telling Anna anything beyond that, which is just fine with her.

Bonnie pours a mug of coffee before offering the pot to Anna. She shakes her head. Thankfully, there’s a bag of mint tea available, and Anna chooses that in hopes of it calming her stomach a bit. “I wanted to give him this,” Anna says as she passes the gift off. “Jemma said he would like it.”

The other woman’s eyes light up at the name. “You know her? She’s such a sweet lass.”

Anna smiles and nods. “She is indeed.”

Bonnie laughs when she peaks through the pieces of tissue paper to spot the sock monkey inside. “Thank you for this.”

Anna shrugs. “Sorry it couldn’t be the real thing. I heard he’s pretty stuck on that.”

“He’s wanted one since he found out they exist,” Bonnie answered. “He was three and my father and I took him to the zoo. The monkeys were the second exhibit we saw, and he threw a fit whenever we tried to walk away to see the other animals.” She pauses and smiles a little at the memory. “He was a wee thing, always has been. I was so nervous when he told me who he wanted to work for, but he was so very determined. And now all these terrible things…”

“Leo is one of the good guys, trust me. Very kind, always seeing the good in people. The world could use more people like him.”

Bonnie thanks her quietly before sipping her coffee. “I feel like I’m going mad in here, but I can’t leave his side. He’s all I have. Do you have any children?”

Anna’s tongue ties in her mouth. She can easily sympathize with the woman across the table, but she has no desire to dredge up those memories any more than she has to. “No,” she answers.

They sit in silence for a moment after that. Anna finishes her drink and slides a piece of paper across the table. “This is my phone number, if you need anything. I live in the Tower, so I can come to you quickly, as long as I’m not traveling. And I can contact Jemma if you need any message passed along to her, too.”

“Very kind of you, thank you. Will you tell her she was the first person he asked about when he woke up?”

“I will,” Anna promises.


	14. Girl Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, **the_wordbutler** , for not only cleaning my words but convincing me to keep writing them.

“And that’s how I showed him twelve percent of a good time,” Pepper says to finish her story. Anna and the other two women in the room—Maria and May—laugh. But Anna doesn’t join the others in taking a drink from their goblets of pinot noir. Hers has gone untouched for the evening, and she isn’t even trying to hide that fact. She knows she won’t be able to sneak anything past this trio of ladies, so she doesn’t even bother trying.

Pepper turns her eyes on her. “Your turn for a story about a guy.”

Anna shakes her head. “I’m not that good of a storyteller, and my stories aren’t that interesting, anyway.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Pepper tuts. She hesitates for a second before asking, “Are you okay with talking about Phil?”

Anna feels May and Maria’s eyes turn on her, possibly a silent reminder to talk about her… whatever Phil’s title is right now in the past tense and pretend he’s been dead this whole time. Honestly, the whole acting like he’s gone aspect won’t be much of an act.

“That’s fine,” Anna answers.

“Favorite memory of him,” Pepper challenges before taking a sip of her wine.

The memory comes unbidden and threatens to overwhelm her with its sweetness. Anna takes a deep breath and quickly licks her lips before she begins her answer. “It was a couple of months before I moved to New York the first time.” She keeps her focus on the shiny surface of the table they sit around, finding it easier to look at that than the faces sitting around it. “I was supposed to play a series of concerts in Paris. I’d never been before—still haven’t actually—and was really excited about it. But the funding fell through or something, and it was cancelled. I called him to complain about it, and two days later, I came home to him making crepes in my kitchen—and by making crepes, I mean arranging the ones he bought at a bakery on plates.”

“I thought he could cook,” Maria throws out.

Anna shrugs. “He can grill. Always bragged about that like it was the highest form of cooking someone could achieve.”

Pepper shakes her head. “I can’t even tell you how many things Tony’s caught on fire in the name of the almighty grill.” The CEO turns her attention back to Anna with an evil glint in her eye. “So, what kind of reward did you give Phil for the crepes?”

Anna smiles while Maria and Melinda groan. “He only stayed for about an hour.”

Pepper grins. “Plenty of time for—“

“We really don’t need details,” Maria interrupts.

She shakes her head. “We ate crepes, and he told me all the awful things about Paris. The dirty streets, how they snub you if you don’t speak French, all of that. Anything that would make me feel better about not going.” Anna runs her finger along the rim of her wine glass as she remembers the evening—the scent of Phil’s aftershave, the sweetness of the food, the warmth that seeped into her body whenever Phil was around. “Then we slow danced in the kitchen. He sang this song, barely loud enough for me to hear.” She can’t help the little grin that crosses her face. “He couldn’t sing to save his life. And the song he sang was in French, and I only speak about five words of that. Took me three days to figure out it was the French translation of ‘Beyond the Sea.’”

“ _La Mer_ ,” Pepper clarifies.

“Sure.”

“You miss him?”

“Desperately,” Anna answers.

“You know,” Pepper starts and she leans her elbows up on the table, “if you’re ready, of course—“

“No,” she interrupts with a chuckle. “Just no.”

The sad look Pepper gives her makes Anna want to roll her eyes, but she fights the urge. “It doesn’t have to be any time soon, but I know—“

“I’d already decided I wasn’t going to have another relationship after David.”

“So what changed your mind?” Melinda asks.

“I—“ She pauses and shakes her head, wishing she had a more dignified answer. “Phil was Phil. You meet him, he’s the most innocuous person on the face of the earth, and then one day, you wake up and you don’t want to think about life without him.” A thousand memories threaten to overwhelm her, but she squeezes her eyes shut for a second to block them off. “Thank you, Pepper, but anyone who ends up in a serious relationship with me tends to end up dead, so let’s not do that.”

She stands, making an excuse that she needs to go to bed, adding a complaint about her hand. Anna didn’t ask for Melinda to follow her back to her quarters, and she certainly didn’t invite the woman inside, but few things in Anna’s life seemed optional at the moment. ”Are you on escort duty?” she asks.

The other woman stares her down for so long Anna can’t help but shift in place, but it does nothing to ease the tension. “I thought Simmons gave you pain killers for your hand.”

Anna shrugs. “I’ll take some Tylenol, it’ll be fine. Is there something you need?”

Melinda’s initial answer is yet another stare. “You’ve avoided strong pain medication, caffeinated coffee, and alcohol.”

She feels her chin raise as a challenge. Her muscles tighten and her stomach churns. “And what concern is that to you?”

“Have you told him?”

“Told him what?”

“That you’re pregnant.”

The word hangs in the air, heavy and painful. “No,” Anna answers.

“He deserves to know.”

“I haven’t told him because I don’t know for sure.”

Melinda arches an unsympathetic eyebrow. “There’s a fairly easy way to find out.”

Anna snorts. “Trust me when I say there’s a shitty history with this, and, no, I’m not telling you about it.” She sighs shakily, trying to get her emotions under control. “Besides, thanks to all of you, I’m now paranoid about everything. I can’t go to a doctor because what if he finds out that, if I’m pregnant, the father is now the director of a non-existent secret spy outfit that is possibly full of terrorists?”

Melinda nods, her face still the same emotionless mask. She eases her way onto one of the barstools at Anna’s kitchen counter. Felix decides to make an appearance, leaping up onto the counter and mewling at the new visitor. It immediately switches to loud purring when Melinda begins to rub his ears.

Anna tries really hard not to see her as some evil villain while she pets her cat, but it’s a challenge.

“You know how I said I was married before?” Melinda asks.

“Yeah,” Anna answers slowly.

“It was to Phil’s predecessor.”

“Was?” Anna pushes, because if she has to give up everything, she’s going to make sure Melinda has to forfeit some information, too.

“It’s complicated,” Melinda responds in a _drop it_ tone of voice.

“You ever have kids?” Anna asks as she pours two glasses of water and hands one to Melinda.

“No,” she responds with snort. “That would’ve been a terrible idea.”

“So what do I do?” Anna questions, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You could pee on a stick and find out whether this is nothing or not.” Anna’s mind flashes back to the last time she did that, and her heart almost breaks with the joy she’d felt. But that was ages ago, before everything in her life became broken. Her chest tightens with anxiety of having to go through such a thing again, and Melinda must pick up on it. “Or I can take you to Simmons, and she can run tests. You probably need to have a check up on your hand, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Anna sighs. “Let’s do that instead.”

Melinda nods. “I’ll fly you out when I head back to our base tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Anna says as she starts to steel herself for a number of terrifying prospects.


	15. Possibilities

Anna steps off the plane into an empty hangar. May’d warned her about a few things on the flight to wherever they were: how the identical twin of the dead body they found at the last base would question Anna’s presence, how Phil looked like he wasn’t sleeping and had a tendency to wall himself away when he thought he could get away with it, and how May’d heard orchestral music coming from Phil’s quarters a few times. She’d started to warn Anna about something else, but shook her head and focused on landing the jet instead.

Anna waits near the small private plane while Melinda finishes her shut down procedures. Already, she can tell this base is set up differently than the last; this one feels smaller, and she doesn’t want to wandering where she shouldn’t. She hears the click of footsteps behind her, and she doesn’t have to turn around to know it’s Phil’s dress shoes making contact with the cement floor of the hangar.

When she does turn, he greets her with a small smile, and she can’t help but notice how tired he looks. Once he’s close enough, the fingers of her left hand come up to trace the new lines above his right eye. “Stop scarring your face,” she tells him. “It’s a nice face.”

He leans into the touch ever-so-slightly, but only for a moment. “What are you doing here?” he asks as he pulls away.

The words stick in her throat. She’s practiced different ways of telling him, but none of them seem right. None of this seems right.

“Tell him or I will,” May threatens from behind her.

Phil shoots a cross look over Anna’s shoulder before turning back to her, concern evident on his face. “Anna?”

“I’m late,” she tells him softly. Somehow, the two words seem to fill the expanse of the hangar. “More than a little late, actually.”

His mouth hangs open in that adorable expression he gets in the few times he’s surprised about something. “You’re—“

“I don’t know for sure,” Anna says. “I was too scared to get confirmation. Melinda figured that out and dragged me to wherever we are so Jemma could run a test.”

“I’ll go see if she’s up,” Melinda announces before leaving them alone.

They stand in silence for a minute, shuffling slightly on their feet and avoiding eye contact, when Phil hesitantly asks, “The night in the hotel room?”

“Did we have sex some other time and I just forgot about it?”

“No,” he answers with a small chuckle. “That was a while ago,” he comments.

She knows exactly long ago it was. She’s been counting the weeks in her head once every hour. “I’ve been a little stressed since then,” she says with a small shrug. “That can wreak havoc on regularly scheduled programs. And, I was scared,” she admits. “I didn’t know where we stood, and I didn’t know if what they used to bring you back would have some effect, and if Melinda hadn’t called me out, I might’ve been a prime candidate for that _I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant_ show.”

“Haven’t seen that one before,” he replies. Anna knows he’s trying to turn it into a joke, but the humor doesn’t reach his eyes. “Is this something you want?”

She hears the mess of emotions he’s trying to contain eek out in his question. It causes her own anxiety to spike, and her heart rate drums in her ears. “Let’s save this conversation for if there’s a positive test result.”

Anna begins to walk past him, following Melinda’s exit, but he grabs her gently by the arm and shakes his head. “We’ve avoided enough conversations lately. We’re having this one.” He licks his lips before continuing. “I’ll support you no matter what choice you make about this, if there’s even a choice to be made. I completely understand if this isn’t something you want, I know there are several reasons for you to feel that way, and they’re all completely valid.” His thumb begins to swipe back and forth along her arm, and her eyes fall to the cement floor. She tries to fight off the hot tears she can feel pinpricking her eyes, but to no avail. “And if this is something you want, I’ll quit.”

Anna can’t help the harsh snort that comes out of her. “You know the story about the boy who cried wolf, right?”

“I’m serious, Anna.” 

Anna knows by the look of his face how serious he is, and she isn’t surprised at all by the reaction. She shakes her head. “I can survive you dying on me—just barely, by the way. But I wouldn’t survive you resenting me.”

“I would never—“

“Yes, you would,” she cuts in. “You’ve made it abundantly clear that the last thing you want to do is walk away from your job.”

“I would for this,” he reassures. 

And he would, Anna knows it. Phil would undoubtedly be an amazing father, but the high of having a kid would wear off, and he’d grow restless and feel trapped. And she would feel nothing but guilt about it. “Let’s go see if this is even a thing before we start making promises we don’t want to.”

He nods, his thumb coming up to swipe away the few tears that made it to her cheeks. It’s her turn to lean into the contact this time. With a whispered, “C’mere,” he pulls her into a hug. She gives into the experience of his strong arms squeezing tightly around her, attempting some barrier of protection from the shit that swirls around them.


	16. History

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains discussion of the death of a child. It’s a super angsty update, just so you’re aware. *hands out tissues*
> 
> Extreme thanks to **the_wordbutler** for helping me with my words even when I give her an abundance of unpleasant feels.

“A pregnancy test?” Skye exclaims from her seat in the lone spinning chair in the medical ward.

“Why exactly are you here?” Phil asks.

The young woman shrugs. “Bored.”

Phil rolls his lips, exasperation evident on his face. “Skye—“

“You can stay,” Anna finishes. Phil gives her a questioning look. “Like you all are capable of keeping gossip to yourselves.”

“I’ll have to do a blood test,” Jemma informs her. “S.H.I.E.L.D. bases aren’t usually stocked with at-home pregnancy tests.”

“That’s fine,” Anna lies, because needles are a fear of hers.

“And we’ll wait for the results to come back before we determine how to check up on your hand. Don’t want to do X-rays if—“

“Yeah,” Anna interrupts. “How long will it take to get the results?”

“At least a couple of hours,” Jemma answers, a note of regret in her voice.

“Excuse me,” a new voice calls out.

Despite being warned by Melinda on the plan ride wherever this secret base is, Anna still does a double take at the man standing in the doorway. The last time she saw that face, Jemma was inspecting a body to find cause of death.

“What do you need, Billy?” Phil asks.

“Sir, she needs to be vetted before—“

“No,” Phil says sharply.

“Sir—“

“I said no.”

“Director, there are still regulations even if there is barely a S.H.I.E.L.D. left,” the agent explains, and it’s still weird for Anna to hear Phil’s new title.

“It can wait,” Phil tells the man in a tone that is the definition of quiet authority. Billy opens his mouth to argue, but then closes it and walks out of the room.

Anna looks at Phil. “What exactly does vetting require?”

“A lie detector chair straight out of some spy movie,” Skye answers.

Jemma huffs as she readies her supplies. “Not that it works all that well if Ward passed his test.” At the name of the traitor, they all fall into uncomfortable silence.

“Leo’s mom said hi,” Anna tells the young doctor. “She was very complimentary of you.”

A bittersweet smile crosses Jemma’s face. “She is a kind woman.”

“I didn’t get to see Leo, but—“

“Oh, Skye found a way to access his medical reports,” Jemma says with a grin. “I’ve been able to keep up on his condition thanks to her.”

“It’s mostly legal,” Skye informs them.

“I’m going to pretend to not hear this,” Phil mutters.

“Don’t you want to stay informed about his condition?” Anna asks.

“Of course I do,” he says. “But I just don’t want to hear from Stark about how his systems were hacked.”

Skye sighs and props her feet up on a nearby table, smirk wide across her face. “I am pretty awesome.”

Jemma looks at Anna apologetically. “I’m going to have to ask you questions of a personal nature.”

“I’m out,” Skye announces. “I suddenly remembered where babies come from and I don’t need to hear about this.”

Jemma waits for Skye to walk out of the small medical center before she swabs Anna’s arm with alcohol. “Were you using or are you currently using any form of birth control?”

“I have an IUD,” Anna answers.

Jemma grimaces. “There’s an increased chance of ectopic pregnancies—where the fertilized egg settles in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus—with IUDs. I’ll have to do a scan if the test comes back positive. If you have an ectopic pregnancy, I’ll have to induce a miscarriage.”

Anna nods. “That’s fine.” She can feel her heartbeat thud in her chest. She does the best she can to keep her breathing under control, and she certainly doesn’t look at Phil. She keeps her focus on her shoes and tries not to let old memories creep up on her, but it’s difficult.

“Have you ever been pregnant before?” Jemma asks.

“Yes,” Anna answers quietly.

She notices the slight pause in Jemma’s movements. “How did that pregnancy progress?”

Phil clears his throat. “Do you really need to know that to run the test?”

“Technically, no,” Jemma answers. “But a full medical history—“

“Just run the test,” Phil orders.

“Yes, sir.”

At this point, Anna loses her battle with keeping her breathing under control. And now, there’s the added bonus of hot tears filling her eyes. Phil moves towards her and pulls her as close to him as he can while she sits on the exam table. Jemma rambles about the latest news on Leo, but the words and the contact with Phil aren’t enough of a distraction. Thankfully, Jemma is efficient.

“You don’t have to stay here while you wait for me to run the test if you don’t want to,” Jemma tells them.

“Thanks,” Anna sniffles. She remains still long enough for Jemma to place a cotton ball and a band-aid over where the needle stuck her before she climbs off the table and starts walking towards a door. She doesn’t even know if it’s the correct exit, she just knows she has to get away. 

Phil places a hand on her lower back and guides her down a hallway and into his quarters. Anna knows it’s his because the scent of his aftershave hangs faintly in the air.

“C’mere,” Phil whispers as he pulls her into his arms.

She loses it completely then, too overcome with everything: memories, being near Phil again, and all-consuming fear. When she finally gets herself under control, she steps out of the embrace. Phil walks over to a mini-fridge and grabs a couple of bottles of water. He hands one to her, and she mutters her thanks.

Once she takes a long pull, she sets the bottle down on a counter and begins to pace the small area of the kitchenette. “I’ve never told you the whole story, have I?”

“You don’t have to,” he reassures her. 

“No,” she says as she shakes her head. “You told me about your alien thing.” Anna pauses to waves her good hand in the general direction of his torso. “I should tell you about this.”

Phil produces a box of tissues from somewhere. He tells her again she doesn’t have to tell him the full story, but she does. He’s seen the faint stretch marks still lining her stomach and the scar from the C-section low on her abdomen. And he knows she doesn’t have a child now. She’d tried to keep the marks on her body hidden for as long as possible, but it was still months before he shyly asked about their history. She’d given him a four-word answer, and he’d never brought it up again.

“David and I married when I was stupid young, the week after I graduated from college. I was twenty-one, and he was twenty-four. We focused on our careers for a few years, wanting to get ourselves established and whatever.” Phil remains rooted leaning against the counter. She doesn’t look over at him while she walks back and forth. “David talked me into a trip to Georgia for my twenty-sixth birthday. A beach house his parents owned. It was actually where our son was conceived.” She cringes at that. “Sorry, probably too much information.” 

“It’s fine,” Phil tells her.

Anna nods and continues. “We were only going to go for a few days to celebrate my birthday. I was still a couple weeks away from my due date, and my doctor okayed it, but—“

“You went into labor,” Phil finishes for her.

“A few hours in, they noticed the baby was in distress.” She swallows hard. These are words she hasn’t told anyone before, at least not for a decade, back when she’d tried group therapy. It hadn’t worked. “They did a C-section,” she continues. “And that was when we found out something was wrong.” She swipes tears off her face as she speaks. “He was born with a heart defect; it’s called HLHS.”

“I can look it up myself, if you want,” Phil offers.

Anna shakes her head. She’s made it this far. “It took a few hours for them to realize his left ventricle was drastically underdeveloped and his atria were connected. It made it difficult to pump blood to his body, and because of the atria his blood couldn’t be fully oxygenated.” She rattles off the terms, keeping it clinical, to make it hurt less. “The hospital we were at was barely able to handle my C-section. There was no way they could care for him, so they shipped us off to a hospital in Atlanta.”

All she can see is her newborn’s face, his skin possessing a faint tint of blue. She thought he was super sweet for sleeping most of the time, but she later learned his body wasn’t getting enough oxygen to do anything else.

“David wanted to give him a name. We didn’t want to know if it was a boy or girl beforehand. And we held off on finalizing names. ‘Have to see their face first,’ David’d said.

“But then he was born, and the doctors were throwing out all of these terms and procedures. He’d need at least three surgeries and, eventually, a heart transplant. The first surgery had to take place as soon as possible.” She pauses, lost in a haze of fearful memories. “I told David that we weren’t going to name him until he came through the first one,” she explains, her voice breaking at the end of the sentence.

“And he didn’t?” Phil asks.

She shakes her head. “Our families wanted a funeral, but we couldn’t deal with it. The doctors let us hold him one last time, then we cremated him and spread the ashes at the beach where we were supposed to be vacationing.”

“And that’s why you hate your birthday and the state of Georgia,” Phil says. Anna nods, and he slowly eases away from the counter and wraps her in another hug. “If you don’t want this, we don’t—“

“You want this,” Anna says with a sniffle. “I know we’ve never talked about it, but I’ve seen the way you look at kids.”

Phil shrugs. “I gave up on the idea a while ago.” Anna pulls back just enough to look him in the eye. “I’ll admit the thought crept into my head time or two when you came around, but I knew enough of your history to think you wouldn’t want it.”

She sighs. “It might make me a horrible person, but—“

“It’s okay,” Phil reassures. “If it’s negative or ectopic, it’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

“And if it’s not?” Anna questions.

“I’ll support you in whatever you choose.”

Anna buries her face in his neck once more. She’d go through it again for him. She’d be a nervous wreck the entire time, but she’d do it.

“We’ll cross that bridge if we have to,” she tells him. “But just fair warning: we’re going to have a fight later about how you’d walk away from your job because I might be pregnant, but not when I ask you to.”

“That’s fair,” he admits.

She steps out of the embrace with another sniffle to take a drink from her water bottle. “How much longer?”

“At least ninety minutes,” Phil answers. “When was the last time you slept?”

She can’t think of an answer fast enough for his liking, and the lack of response is all he needs. Gently, he guides her to the bed and pulls her down with him. He softly tells her stories of places he’s visited around the world. Today, he avoids any tales of beaches. It lulls her to sleep, and mercifully, she doesn’t dream of newborns who are too tired to laugh or cry.

When she wakes some time later, he wordlessly hands her his phone. She rubs her eyes and then reads the single-worded text from Jemma: _Negative_.


	17. Insanity

Anna wakes some time later. The little clock on the nightstand tells her it’s just after five, but she doesn’t know if that means in the morning or evening. Not that it would matter, since she doesn’t know what time zone she’s in, either.

Her good hand reaches out across the mattress only to find it empty. “Over here,” Phil calls out. She rolls over to find him sitting at a table and reading something on a tablet. He’s in a black S.H.I.E.L.D. t-shirt, boxers, and glasses, and stubble is obvious on his face. If Anna is honest, this is her favorite outfit of his because it means he’s hers for the moment. He stands and walks over the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

“How long was I asleep?” Anna asks.

“Ten hours,” Phil says. “Do you remember waking up?”

It takes a second, but then she recalls him showing her the test result on his phone. Her left hand moves for one of his. “You okay with that?”

“Yeah,” he answers quietly with a small nod. “I told you I’d be fine no matter what happens.”

“Saying that and feeling that are two very different things, Phil.”

He hangs his head at that. “It would’ve been nice,” he admits, “but I don’t think either of us is in a place to be as good of a parent as we’d want to be.” They sit quietly for a moment before he sets his jaw into his _I’ve just made a decision_ face, stands, and pulls on a pair of sweatpants. “I know we need to talk about things, but there’s something you need to see before that can happen.”

Anna’s stomach starts to twist at the invitation, but she can see the line of tension in his shoulders and gets out of the bed anyway. What she really wants right now is a hot shower and some toothpaste. She doesn’t want to think about how long she’s been in the same clothes. But Phil’s willing to walk around the base in his pajamas, so it means something serious is happening and she’ll just have to wait to get cleaned up.

Silently, he guides her to a room that’s far off from where most of the activity in the base seems to be happening. The single light in the empty space shines on the far wall, and it takes Anna’s eyes a second to adjust before she realizes what she’s looking at. The large wall is covered in a series of lines and shapes. She supposes there’s a pattern to the giant etching, but she can’t make sense of it. “What is this?”

“What I do when I can’t sleep.” Phil answers.

“What does it mean?”

He shrugs, his lips rolling into a tight line. “I don’t know. I’ve just had a couple of nights where I’m overcome with the need to do this, even though I don’t know what ‘it’ is. But my hand knows how to move. It’s like there’s something in me that I just need to get out, but I don’t have a clue what it is.”

Anna tries to be okay with that answer. There have been plenty of times in the middle of the night where a melody was so persistent in her head that she had to climb out from under the covers to play it. She tries to liken that to the wall she’s standing in front of, but it’s a challenge. “Does this have something to do with how they brought you back?”

Phil nods. “I think so. Garrett was given something similar to the drug that saved me and Skye, and he marked up a door in lines and circles that look like this.”

“Have you showed this to Skye?”

“No,” Phil says, his voice quivering ever so slightly. “You’re the first.”

Anna chews on that information for a moment while taking in how he’s shuffling his weight back and forth on his feet ever so slightly. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell Melinda or Skye what’s happening, preferably both. You’re going to let Jemma scan your brain for signs of… I don’t even know, but you let her do it.”

“Okay,” Phil agrees with a nod, his eyes staring at anything but her.

He looks lost. So much so that it breaks her heart. It’s her turn to gather him up in her arms and whisper reassurances. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” he confesses into her hair, and she just squeezes him tighter.

“Then I’ll welcome you into the club of crazy people. We can have matching jackets and a secret handshake.”

He huffs a laugh before pulling away. “My boss told me when he gave me this position that I should rebuild things slowly, do it right. I want to do that with us, too, but I understand if you don’t want to after seeing all of this.”

It would be a lie if she said the wall carving behind her doesn’t scare the shit out of her. It does. But she supposes there are worse ways the alien whatever in him could manifest itself. “So no scaring the shit out of me in stairwells to announce that you’re not actually dead?” she offers.

“No hiding the fact that you might be pregnant until Melinda drags your ass to me.”

“No saying you’re going to quit, because we both know that’s not going to happen,” Anna challenges.

The corner of his mouth quirks up into a faint grin. “Should I find a pen and paper to start making a list?”

“Or you could just carve it into the wall,” Anna shoots back. Instantly, what little humor on his face falls away, and she feels like shit. “Hey,” she says as she rests a hand on his cheek, “We’ll figure this out.”


	18. Next Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to **the_wordbutler** for helping me with my words. This ties one stoory arch and gives a clue for the next one. Hope you enjoy. Thank you so much for reading.

“We make quite the pair,” Anna declares. They’re back in the medical ward of the base. Phil sits in a chair across the room with sensors placed everywhere around his head. She sits on a bed waiting for Jemma to attack her with a saw. Technically, the attack is to remove her cast, but Anna gets nervous whenever someone places a rotating blade anywhere near her livelihood.

“I’d come over and hold your hand,” Phil offers, “but I’m a little tied up at the moment.” He points to the leads and wires attached to his head, and Anna shakes her head.

“Normally, I’d at least politely laugh at that like a good girlfriend should, but I’m a little busy trying not to lose my shit,” she responds as she tries not to flinch when Jemma whirs the blade as a warm up. “I’m just going to close my eyes, turn my head, keep really still, and you can tell me when it’s over.”

“That’s what she said,” Skye quips as she enters the room. Her eyes flick back and forth between Anna and Phil, and it obviously becomes a struggle to maintain a neutral expression. “What’s going on?”

“Agent—sorry,” Jemma apologizes. “Director Coulson requested a brain scan, and Anna’s X-ray showed that her cast was ready to come off.”

Skye turns to Phil, concern clearly written on her face. “Everything okay?” Before he can answer, she shakes her head a little and looks at Anna. “Wait, pregnant women can’t have X-rays.”

“Not pregnant,” Anna says.

“And,” Jemma clarifies, “it’s only an issue if the X-ray is of the abdomen.”

“Oh,” Skye responds, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Okay then.”

Anna steals a glance at Phil. “I think she might win the award for sounding most disappointed.”

Skye rolls her eyes. “You guys do whatever you want with your reproductive systems. I just thought, I don’t know… Your first baby was really cute and—“

“What are you talking about?” Anna interrupts. She can hear the harshness in her tone, but she doesn’t care. “What do you know about that?”

Jemma grimaces. “You mentioned a medical history, and I wanted to be fully prepared, so I had Skye find your records from Atlanta. There was a picture in the file, and I know it’s violation of confidentiality, but all I did was show her the picture.” She ducks her head in embarrassment. “He really was an adorable baby.”

“How do you have a picture of him?” Anna asks.

Phil tries to lean forward, but purses his lips when he can’t move his head. “You don’t have one?”

Anna shakes her head. “We forgot to pack the camera. None of our family made it in time, and we never left the hospital.”

“Your doctor took it,” Jemma answers. “He needed it for your son’s medical file. The doctor was hoping he’d add him to his list of trial patients for the procedures he would’ve gone through.”

“Can I see it?” The words are out of Anna’s mouth before she realizes the thought was even there. Jemma nods, puts down the saw, and grabs a tablet. It takes a few seconds and several swipes at the screen before the image is displayed. She hands the device to Anna, who takes it with a shaking left hand. 

His little face isn’t quite what she remembers, but time has had almost twelve years to mess with her memories. She’d forgotten how her son had inherited his father’s brow and her nose. The picture was taken during one of the few times he was wide awake, and he looks content. That’s the part that causes her breath to seize in her chest.

“Skye, I’m a little tied up at the moment,” Phil says. “Can you at least sit on the exam bed next to her or something since I can’t?”

“Yeah, sure,” Skye says hurriedly before sitting next to Anna and awkwardly wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “What happened to him?” she asks softly.

“Have Jemma tell you later,” Anna says. She doesn’t have the energy to go through the story again. Instead, she traces the outline of the man’s hand in the image. It’s resting over the baby’s chest, probably to cover up the sensors attached there.

“Someone you know?” Skye asks.

Anna nods. “My husband.” She points to the scar on David’s index finger. “He and his little brother were putting away dishes one night when they were kids and decided to have a sword fight with steak knives. Kevin sliced his finger open.” She tries to force down memories of how she was going to make matching father and son shirts. Her boys, as she was supposed to call them. 

She blinks away tears and holds the tablet out for Jemma to take. “If you could send me a copy, I’d appreciate it,” she requests. “My sister never got to see him.”

“Of course,” Jemma promises. She exchanges the tablet for the saw. “Ready?”

“Why the hell not,” Anna answers, and Skye squeezes her shoulders. A minute later, cool air meets the skin of her wrist for the first time in weeks. The sensation is worth the awful smell it brings.

“I need you to listen carefully to me,” Jemma says, her authoritative doctor tone ringing clearly in her voice. “Do not push yourself. I know you want to get back into fighting shape as quickly as possible, but do not rush things, you’ll just do yourself more harm than good.”

Anna nods as she slowly flexes her fingers. They’re stiff, but there isn’t any pain. She can’t help but frown at the noticeable loss in muscle tone in her hand and wrist. And despite Jemma’s warning, she’s already calculating how hard she can push herself. It’s probably a good thing she doesn’t have a cello with her.

“All done,” Jemma announces with a smile. “You’ll want to soak your hand for a bit for the next few days, and be gentle with it. New skin is very delicate.”

“Got it,” she replies before looking over at Phil. “Want me to stay?”

He shakes his head. “Go get a shower. I’ll meet you back at my quarters when I’m done.”

It’s been a while since a shower felt so good. Without the nuisance of wrapping her hand in plastic and worrying about getting it wet, she can fully relax under the hot spray. She also finds there’s slightly less tension in her shoulders; that’s probably due to telling Phil the whole story of her past. 

She hears Phil call out for her as she steps out, so she quickly wrings out her hair and wraps herself in a towel before walking out into the main part of his quarters. “How’d it go?” she asks. He tosses a robe her direction, and she slips it on so the towel can be wrapped around her head.

“Jemma didn’t find anything,” Phil answers. “I told her I was sleepwalking since she doesn’t know about the alien side of things. I showed the carvings to Melinda and Skye. They’re going to do research to see if they can find similar markings anywhere, other than what Garrett drew, and Melinda told me if I started feeling the urge again, then I should ask Jemma to hook me up for another brain test.”

“Guess that’s better than some of the outcomes I’d imagined,” Anna says.

Phil nods. “You and me both.” He crosses the distance between them to wrap her in a hug and place a kiss on her toweled head. “You okay?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah, I was just caught off guard. I didn’t know there was a picture of him.”

“I’ve got it on a tablet I brought back with me if you want to send it to your sister.”

“No one can trace it back to here, can they?” Anna asks.

“No. Skye made sure of that.”

“Okay.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d still be in the shower,” he tells her, his voice playful, before he nips at an exposed earlobe.

“That can be arranged,” she offers, but he shakes his head.

“I’ll be quick. It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

“What every girl loves to hear,” she snarks back. Anna uses half of the time he’s in the shower trying to untangle her curls with her fingers. The remainder is spent sitting on the bed to first send an email to her sister, and then to stare at the image once more. 

When Phil emerges, he’s clean-shaven and smells of soap. Dressed in only boxers, he sits down on the bed next to her. It’s all she can do not to bury her nose in the nearest patch of bare skin and take refuge in the scent of body wash.

“Can I see?” he asks softly, hand halfway outstretched. She nods and gives him the tablet. Phil stares at a moment before saying, “He was very cute. And I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

Her breath shudders in her chest, but she manages to fight back most of the tears. “I was sitting here trying to think of a good name, but I can’t pin one down. I think I was just going to let David pick and only argue if it was something really stupid.” She rests her head on his shoulder and asks, “Have any good baby names?” 

The question’d seemed innocent in her head, but from the way she can feel Phil tense against her, she knows he doesn’t agree.

“Anna—“

“Sorry. I was just curious,” she says as she starts to pull away.

Phil grabs her hand to keep her in place next to him. “It took a long time for me to accept the fact that I was never going to be a father. We’re talking years. And with all that’s happened in the last couple of days, all the dirt I’ve thrown on top of that idea to bury it has vanished. I can’t sit here and think of baby names if it’s never going to happen. And it doesn’t have to happen.” His face is open to show her that the last thing he wants to do is put pressure on her. “But I can’t have you saying we’ll never have kids and then you ask me what I’d name them.”

“That’s fair,” Anna admits. “And I wish I could give you a straight answer on this, but I don’t know.” She twists on the bed so she can look at him. Her eyes flicker over the scar on his chest, her brain still adjusting to its presence. “You are the only person I’d consider having a child with, but the last thing I want to put you through is something like that. I have a body that makes broken babies and—“

“Just because it happened once doesn’t mean it will happen again,” he interrupts. “Don’t say that.”

Anna rolls her lips and nods, but she can’t quite believe him. “So what do we do?”

“Let’s wait. Give ourselves some time to figure the rest of this relationship out.”

“A year?” she asks.

Phil takes a second before nodding. “Sure. A year from now we’ll see how things are and go from there. And until then, I need to figure out how to rebuild an agency while being a decent boyfriend.”

“And I need to get used to you rebuilding an agency.”

Phil grabs for the tablet and together they begin to make a list of rules so that, like S.H.I.E.L.D., they can put things back together carefully and to last. There are conditions like talking to each other every day (obviously allowing leeway for extreme circumstances), in-person contact at least twice a month, and not hiding things from each other anymore with the exception of keeping the other safe. 

When the list is complete, Anna snuggles up against Phil’s side. “If it weren’t for the cat, you know I’d offer to stay here forever, right? I could just spend all day hidden away from all the intelligence, be your wench. Or provide in-cabin ambiance music on the plane.”

Phil smiles. “It’s been a few days since I looked at budget reports, so I can’t give you an immediate answer for your proposal.”

“You could pay me in orgasms.”

“I think there’s at four different regulations against that.”

“Oh, official-sounding talk. Sexy.” Anna laughs as Phil tackles her to the bed.

“We could give you a ride back home, if you want. I was planning on making a trip to New York anyway.”

“Yeah?” Anna stills beneath him, and she can feel the surprise on her face. So far he’s seemed bound and determined to keep the fact that he’s alive a secret. And while she’ll be happy not to play the grieving girlfriend anymore, part of her is sad that she’ll have to start sharing him with more people

Phil nods. “I think it’s time others found out I’m alive. Especially since Tony Stark is trying to privatize world security.”


	19. Back to Business

“You sure about this?” Anna whispers. Which is kind of pointless, because the elevator she’s in with Phil also contains his team. She’s pretty sure spies consider eavesdropping to be normal behavior. Said rapidly moving elevator has the destination of the top floor of the Avengers Tower. It’s a building she still feels awkward calling her home.

“Little late to turn around,” Phil answers, his face in work-non-chalant mode, but Anna can see the thinnest hint of nerves in his eyes. “Besides, I’m pretty sure JARVIS has already announced I’m on my way.”

“Indeed, Agent Coulson,” a warm voice says from the ceiling. “And might I say that I am thrilled to see you are alive and well.”

“Oh my god,” Skye breathes. “It’s JARVIS. It’s actually JARVIS.”

Triplett shoots her a look that makes it obvious he’s questioning her sanity. “You gonna need a minute?”

“Maybe later,” Skye admits.

There’s a soft ding, and then the elevators open. Melinda and Triplett exit first, a tactic devised on the way to the Tower in case there’s some sort of a threat. Phil’d said that if Tony was in the suit for fear of this being a ploy, none of them stood a chance in matching his power. But Anna has a sneaking suspicion that Phil’s equally terrified of one Pepper Potts. As he should be.

“Nobody moves,” Tony orders as soon as they’ve all stepped out of the elevator. He’s standing in the middle of the living room floor, thankfully not in his suit, but the look on his face tells everyone that he is not in the mood to be trifled with. They all obey, and Anna hears Phil sigh quietly next to her. “JARVIS, run a full scan. Make sure it’s really him.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Tony, I already told you—“

It’s not until Tony spins around to glare at the woman who spoke that Anna realizes Maria is in the room. She looks bored and has a sidearm in her hand. 

“What are your orders?” Tony snaps.

Maria sends him an unimpressed look and points the gun at Phil with the most limp-wristed grip Anna’s ever seen.

“Stark,” Phil starts, “I swear—“

“That you tricked us all?” Tony shouts, the muscles in his neck growing taut. “Didn’t think we’d been through enough morale building, ropes course bullshit to work as a team?” He pauses to nearly snarl, but Phil doesn’t interrupt him. “I saw the pool of blood you left behind. I helped arrange your funeral. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I heard it was a lovely service. So thank you.”

Tony snorts and shakes his head. “I’m just going to stand here and play nice. Your punishment is going to step off that elevator in about three hours, and she hasn’t slept in two days. Good luck with that. Why are you even here?”

“I heard you took my Avengers. I want them back,” Phil answers.

“ _Your_ Avengers?”

Anna looks around at the others. They all have their game faces on—except maybe for Skye and Jemma because they’re both too excited to be in the presence of the legendary Tony Stark. Anna’s serious business expression has nothing on the S.H.I.E.L.D. field agents’. All she really wants to do is sneak off and finally get to play her cello for the first time in weeks and avoid another confrontation in her life, but she doesn’t want to disrupt Phil’s badass vibe.

“The Avengers are a S.H.I.E.L.D. initiative,” Phil argues.

“An organization that doesn’t exist anymore, in case they don’t have CNN in purgatory,” Tony snipes back. 

“It does exist,” Phil counters. “And I’m its director.”

That shuts Tony up for a good three seconds, which Anna assumes is probably an eternity. “Excuse me?” he asks, surprise evident in his voice.

“I was named Director,” Phil repeats. “Do I need to draw you a flowchart?”

“And who named you Director?” Tony asked, eyes squinting slightly.

“My predecessor.”

Tony lets out a whoop of glee before spinning around to do a victory dance in front of Maria. “I told you Fury wasn’t dead. None of you ever die. You’re like cockroaches.”

“Phil,” Maria sighs. “What are you doing?”

“My job. Sorry you were so quick to give up yours.”

Her face settles into something hard, and she looks away.

“Let’s go have a chat,” Tony says. “I’ll bring my top aide,” he adds as he points to Maria. “You pick one of yours.” He starts to head towards somewhere deeper into the penthouse before he spins on his heel and stares Anna down. “You knew about this?” he asks while jerking his head in Phil’s direction.

“Yes,” she answers.

“And you didn’t bother telling me about it?” Tony questions.

“You didn’t bother asking me about it,” Anna replies, and she catches the briefest of smirks cross Phil’s face.

“May, you’ll come with me,” Phil orders before turning to Anna. “Take everyone else back to your quarters. I’ll meet you there when we’re done.”

Anna nods and kisses him on the corner of the mouth. “Play nice,” she warns.

“Of course I will,” he tells her, a small smile creasing his face. “I’ll let May be bad cop.”

She leads the rest of them back to the elevator and keys in the code for her quarters. She gives everyone a quick tour before locking herself away in her designated practice room, the one with egg crate foam all over the walls and ceiling. As she shuts the door, she can hear Skye babble excitedly about the chance to meet the one and only Tony Stark.

“We may have to sit on her in order to keep her from going back upstairs,” Jemma half-kids to Triplett.

But then Anna shuts the door and her world shrinks down to just her and her cello. It’s an environment she’s been deprived of for weeks, and her soul feels empty without. It may sound dramatic, but it’s true. 

The first pull of the bow across the string isn’t as eloquent as she normally plays, but she’ll take it. She’s well aware that it will take weeks if not months to regain her musical prowess, yet at the moment she can’t be bothered to care. She has a cello in her grip, and Phil is safe and sound only a few floors away. All is right in her world.


	20. Take a Breath

Anna stands in the mostly dark kitchen area of the open-plan apartment, luxuriating in the decadent raspberry sorbet Pepper makes sure was always stocked in her freezer. The two of them had gone out for ice cream once when Anna first moved into the Tower, and ever since then, Pepper made sure the frozen treat was always available. It was one of many personal touches that Pepper and Tony were kind enough to show her. And then she’d gone and lied to them about Phil.

Speak of the devil, Anna listens as he enters the apartment. His biometrics are already programmed into the system, which makes her all the more curious as to how much Tony and Pepper actually knew about Phil’s status as a not-dead person.

He loosens his tie and drapes his jacket over the back of an armchair in the living room area before making his way towards her, shooting a dirty look at her right hand. He obviously doesn’t miss the fact that she’s holding a pint of frozen goodness against her recovering fingers not for a sweet dessert, but to ease the stiffness and pain. ”How long did you play?” he asks.

"Until my hand went numb," she replies with a proud smile she can’t contain.

Phil shakes his head as he crosses the kitchen to stand in front of her. He dips his head to kiss her, the contact deepening quickly. They’re interrupted by the sound of a groan approaching the kitchen.

"All I wanted was a glass of water," Skye whines.

“Sink’s there,” Phil physically points out, not bothering to step away from the embrace.

Skye, clad in a t-shirt and polka dot sleep pants, hair in a messy knot on top of her head, curls her lip in disgust. “When you inevitably have sex, can you please be quiet about it?” she asks while grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and walking back to bed.

Phil’s eyes trail her until she’s gone. “Spare bedroom?”

Anna nods. “She’s in there with Jemma, and they stole my cat, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Trip said he had a place around here and wanted to spend a night in one of his beds.”

Phil’s brow creases for a second. “Hopefully he never told Garrett about that apartment.”

“I think he’s smart enough not to walk into a trap. Where’s Melinda?”

“She has an apartment in the city, too.”

“Another one wanting to sleep in their own bed?” Anna asks.

“I think she wants to see how many of her husband’s belongings she’ll still find there.”

“Do I even want to poke at that beehive?”

Phil shakes his head. “Not with a ten foot pole.”

He dips his head again, but before his mouth can make contact, the door chime rings. “I thought you were done with Tony for the night,” Anna comments.

“If it were Tony, he’d just barge in,” Phil points out.

“It is Miss Potts at the door,” JARVIS announces.

“Yet another thing I don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole,” Anna tells him as she extracts herself from his arms. 

“Running away?” he asks with a small smile.

“Valuing my life,” Anna corrects. “Good luck with that one.”

She dashes off to the master bath before Phil can answer the door. Drawing a bath, she slips into the hot water to soak her sore hand and arm. She has JARVIS play a piece one of her students is practicing at the moment to further attune herself to its nuances. The melody barely finishes before Phil enters the bathroom, rolling up his shirt sleeves. His shoes are gone, which causes him to give an odd look at the heated tile floor as soon as his socked feet touches it. His untucked dress shirt is opened a third of the way, low enough to show off chest hair, but still hiding his scar.

Phil sits on the lip of the bathtub and reaches his fingers in to flick water at her face. She splashes back and soaks his shirt, but it doesn’t faze him. 

“She leave you in one piece?” Anna asks.

“For now,” Phil answers. “But she wants us to have dinner with her and Tony in a couple nights.”

“That doesn’t sound terrifying at all. How’d it go with Tony?”

Phil frowns and shakes his head. “He’s gone and started the Sentient World Observation and Response Department, or S.W.O.R.D., as he calls it.”

“Sounds like something that would pair well with a S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“He blew up all his suits only to start designing a series of robots with artificial intelligence to monitor criminal and suspicious activities.”

“Because the whole spying robot with artificial intelligence trope always ends well,” Anna comments. “No offense, JARVIS.”

“None taken,” the disembodied voice says.

Phil sighs wearily. “Whatever he’s up to—and he’s not willing to share his entire plan with a quote-unquote zombie—I’m sure I’ll be in meetings about it all day tomorrow.” He reaches into the water once more to gingerly take hold of her hand. “Try not to go too hard,” he asks of her.

She gives him a sultry smirk. “But if my hand isn’t up to snuff, I’ll guess I’ll just have to use my mouth to take care of things.”

Phil grins at her. “Skye asked us to be quiet.”

“And heaven knows you can’t be during sex,” Anna laughs.

Their laughter dies down, and Phil gives her one of those stares where she feels like he can see right through her. “You still doing okay? I know all of this is a lot to take in and I—“

She cuts him off by taking his hand and kissing each knuckle. “You’re here. I’m fine.”

“And when I have to leave again?”

“Just come back to me eventually, and I’ll be okay.”


	21. Double Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to **the_wordbutler** for the beta and for loving this story. And thanks to all of you who read it.

“What about this one?” Anna asks as she steps out of the closet.

“It’s fine,” Phil answers automatically.

She shoots him a dark look, but he misses it since his focus is on the tablet in his hand. He gave up paying attention to her outfit changes three dresses ago, and it’s not helping her mood. “Phil,” she says in a sharp tone.

His head snaps in her direction, eyebrows slightly raised over his glasses. “I’m going have to do some sucking up, aren’t I?”

“I can’t find a damn thing to wear, and you’ve been sitting on that bed for the last forty minutes in your suit. You probably won’t even have a single wrinkle when you finally get up.”

“I’m magical,” he replies.

“You’re something,” she mutters as she steps back into the walk-in closet. She peels off the latest dress—a purple, form-fitting cocktail number—and sighs as she inspects herself in the mirror. She’s always been petite, which she’s mostly fine with except maybe the lack of curves in her figure. Thin has been the norm for her body shape, sometimes too thin when life beats her around.

Phil appears in the reflection—wrinkle-free as she expected—and he wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her temple. “You look beautiful no matter what you’re wearing.”

Anna snorts as she walks out of the embrace. “I’m not in the mood for you to start kissing my ass right now.”

“Are you in the mood for me to kiss near your ass?” he asks with the barest hint of a smirk.

“While I wouldn’t mind a repeat of this morning, we’re running late enough as it is.”

Phil moves to where her dresses hang and pulls out three of them. “These are my favorites, but you’re not wearing this one,” he tells her as he places a little, black dress back in its place. “I’m not sure I want you wearing that while out with Tony Stark.”

Anna eyes the two choices left. “You know I’ve already tried on both of those tonight, right? Oh, wait, you don’t because—“

“I’m sorry,” he interrupts. “It’s a new piece of intelligence I needed to skim before we left.”

She bites her tongue before the question _Needed or wanted?_ can sneak out. It’s been hard remembering that the last few days of having Phil around is not going to be the new normal for her life. She’s let her mind fall into the illusion that he’ll run S.H.I.E.L.D. from one safe, secure place, and she’ll see him most days than not. But that’s not how it’s going to happen. Phil’s too hands-on to sink into a desk job. 

She grabs the dress from his right hand—white with a cut-out in the back—and dresses silently. Finally dressed, they make their way out of the bedroom to find Jemma and Skye cuddled up close together on the couch, halfway through a movie. A heaping bowl of popcorn is set on their nearly-shared laps, and Felix lounges behind them on the back of the couch, currently pawing at Skye’s hair.

“If you go some place good, bring us back dessert,” Skye requests.

“There’s ice cream in the freezer,” Phil tells her.

“I know, but I’m in the mood for rich people food.”

Jemma looks at her like she’s speaking a foreign language. “What does that even mean?”

“We’re not bringing you back food,” Phil reiterates, moving steadily towards the door.

Felix let out a cry as Anna passes, and she turns to look at her cat. “I’ll be back. You have your girls, you’ll be fine.”

Unsatisfied, the cat jumps down from the back of the couch and begins to trail Anna out of the living quarters. Phil points a finger at Felix. “Stay,” he commands.

“He’s not a dog,” Anna tells him.

Jemma and Skye begin calling to the cat. Felix looks back and forth between his two options and settles for returning to the spot on the couch when the younger women offer to share their snack.

“Please do not feed my cat popcorn,” Anna tells them.

Jemma smiles innocently. “Please do not feed your cat any _more_ popcorn?”

“If he has to go to the vet at three in the morning for some digestive thing, you guys are taking him.”

“She can fix whatever might go wrong,” Skye argues while pointing at Jemma. “It’ll be fine. We’re just going to have a quiet night here on the couch.”

“By quiet do you mean making out?” Anna questions. “Because that’s a really comfortable place to do it.” She laughs as Skye’s face turns into a mortified expression and Jemma blushes. “Have a good night,” she tells them in a sing-song voice.

“I believe that falls under the category of ‘trolling,’” Phil comments as they wait for the elevator in the hallway.

“Look at the old man trying to get hip with the vernacular.”

Before he can snark back, the elevator doors open to reveal Tony and Pepper. Tony shakes his head and looks up at the ceiling. “JARVIS, take us back up. We’re supposed to be fashionably late, not arriving at the same time as them.”

“My fault,” Anna says as she and Phil enter the elevator. “I was late because of fashion. Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”

“It’s fine,” Pepper reassures. “Sushi okay with you two?”

“Sure,” Phil answers.

Tony points a finger in Phil’s face. “This is a legendary sushi master we’re talking about here. Don’t go drowning the food in soy sauce and wasabi. It’s a crime against the fish and highly insulting.”

“I’m aware,” Phil replies as he swats Tony’s finger away. “I’ll also be able to carry on a full conversation with him in fluent Japanese. How about you?”

“Why are we doing this again?” Tony asks Pepper.

“Be nice,” she tells him.

Tony drives them to the restaurant in a car that barely fits all four of them. Dinner starts out pleasant enough. Pepper asks how Anna’s hand is healing.

“Not fast enough for my liking,” she answers. “But it’ll get there eventually.”

“I’d love to hear you play,” Pepper says.

“That makes two of us,” Phil mutters.

Anna shakes her head. “Not until I feel ready. I’m not back to where I want people to hear me yet.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you think you are,” Phil replies.

Once dinner is served, it doesn’t take long for the conversation to be dominated by Phil and Tony about how they’re going to make their agencies work together. There’s talk of security threats, bombings, stolen technology, and what a mess all of that can turn into. Anna tries to participate in whatever conversation Pepper is attempting to start with her, but her mind runs away with what the gentlemen are discussing. She thinks of Phil taking on all of that, of Ward attacking her, of the sluggishness of being drugged, and of how she lost Phil once already. It slowly starts overwhelming her until she’s bolting for the restroom.

Pepper slowly opens the door as Anna splashes cold water on her face. “Everything okay?” she asks.

“How do you do this?” Anna questions. “I thought I knew what this was like with David, but we never talked about his work. He left, he came back, and we never talked about what happened in between.” She shakes her head. “How do you live this life?”

“Still trying to figure that one out,” Pepper answers. “There aren’t that many people who can understand what it’s like to watch your boyfriend fly into a black hole with a nuclear warhead on his shoulder.” She slowly reaches over to place a hand on Anna’s shoulder, but the touch still causes Anna to jump. “Do you want me to get Phil?” she asks.

Anna hesitates before she nods. “I’m sure you won’t have to look far.”

Sure enough, Phil peeks into the restroom as soon as Pepper opens the door. His face is lined with worry as he trades places with Pepper. “I’m sorry,” Anna apologizes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t talk about work around you.”

“Your work is your life. If you don’t talk about it, I’m never going to know what’s going on with you.” She closes the distance between them and rests a hand on his cheek. “I’ve been an idiot. Playing house the last few days, thinking this could be our life from now on. But it won’t be.”

“Anna—“

“I’m not blaming you, Phil. If I want to be with you, and I do, this is just something I have to get used to.”

He pulls her into an embrace and she takes the opportunity to further commit his qualities to memory: the smell of his aftershave, the feel of his chest against hers, the faint scratch of his five o’clock shadow as he nuzzles his cheek against her. “What do you want to do?” he asks quietly.

“Play for you.”

“You said you weren’t ready.”

“And you could leave tomorrow to put out some fire and never come back,” she tells him. She feels guilty for cutting their double date short, but neither Tony nor Pepper say anything about it.

When they enter their quarters, the living room is dark and empty. Anna grabs Phil’s hand and pulls him behind her to her practice room. She grabs her concert cello and readies herself while he sinks to the floor, back against the padded wall. “Any requests?” she asks.

He shakes his head. Already the tension that formed at dinner is visibly seeping from his shoulders. Anna closes her eyes and settles on a piece she composed after watching the sunrise while staying at her sister’s house in Arizona. It’s one of Phil’s favorites, and she can almost hear his grin over the melody.

When she finishes, they sit in a peaceful silence for a minute before Anna asks, “We’re doing okay, right?”

“Yeah,” Phil answers. “Don’t you think so?”

“I think I’m a hot mess, and I don’t know what you’re doing wanting to be with me.”

Before he can respond, JARVIS alerts them there is a guest at the door. “Who is it?” Phil asks.

“I’m not allowed to say,” JARVIS replies.

“Stay here,” Phil orders, his face tight and serious.

Anna puts down her cello, but cracks the door open so she can see what happens. She watches as Phil grabs an icer pistol and shields his body behind a corner before telling JARVIS to let in their guest.

The next thing Anna sees is a woman stalking around the corner and slapping Phil in the face before quickly kissing each cheek. The sharp movement causes the hood she’s wearing to fall away and reveal a distinct hair color.

It’s his redhead.


	22. Avengy Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing last week. Was a little busy with wrapping up a month out of town and trying to get started for the school year. Thanks for being patient with me, you five people who read this.

Word travels fast in the spy community, something that Anna already knows. After Natasha had appeared in their quarters at a late hour two nights ago, Tony’d informed Phil the next morning that all the members of the Avengers were coming in for a “Congrats on not being dead” party. 

“I'll throw it myself,” Tony'd offered over breakfast with everyone.

“While that thought is terrifying,” Phil had answered, “I appreciate the offer.”

Skye had immediately volunteered to help out, and Anna'd had to duck her head to hide her smile at the way it’d caused Phil to grind his jaw. The young woman had tried to bring Jemma in, but the scientist had informed her friend that she needed to spend some time with Leo.

The party is tonight, but Anna has to teach her last class of the summer session. She can barely listen to the notes floating around her because of her preoccupying thoughts. She's grateful not to be there for the first part of the gathering. She doesn't want to interrupt the reunion, but she also doesn't need to relive the memory and feelings associated with Phil suddenly appearing back in her life. While it was one of the happiest days she's ever had, there's a mess of emotions tied in with the event.

“How was that?”

Anna snaps back into the present and stares at her student. His name is Michael, and he's from some no-name town in Missouri where half the population couldn't pick a cello out of a line up. Guilt immediately washes over her for not giving him her full attention. “Sorry, I'm a little distracted. You ever been to a fancy party? With a bunch of famous people?”

The young man's eyes bug at the thought. “No, ma'am.”

“Me neither,” Anna admits as she sits in her chair. “My boyfriend knows all these big names—“

“He's an agent?” Michael asks with hope in his voice. It takes her a second to realize he means in the show business sense. 

“Used to be, but he got a promotion. Now he helps run an agency.” The best lies are based in truth, right? “But he still has to put in a lot of face time with celebrities, and I'm just now used to that kind of lifestyle.”

Michael shakes his head. “I don't think I could ever get used to that kind of thing.”

Anna smiles at him. “Keep playing like you are, and you'll have to get used to it.”

She sends him off with a handshake, her contact info, and a promise to stay in touch. On the walk back to Stark Tower, she mentally prepares herself for the people at the party. They are the faces most associate with saving the world, but her mind has tied them to Phil's death and it's hard to shake that kind of thing.

She feels her chest tighten with anxiety as the elevator climbs up to Tony and Pepper's penthouse. The door slides open and she looks out to a dozen faces, a mix of Avengers and Phil's team. Her eyes scan the small gathering until they find the person they're looking for. Phil smiles at her warmly and a little bit of the tension slips away. She steps out of the elevator as Phil walks up the small set of steps to meet her.

“Hi,” he breathes before kissing her cheek. He's dressed casually for him, and Anna is grateful she listened to his multiple warnings of not to get too dressy for the event. “You want a drink?”

“I want several,” she answers. 

Thankfully, Pepper is there, handing her a wine glass and offering her a reassuring smile. Phil takes the opportunity to introduce her to each individual in the room. The first is a man with dark, curly hair and a shy smile. She recognizes Doctor Banner's name from updates on Leo's condition, but her brain has a hard time reconciling the idea that the man before her could transform into a large, hulking, green thing. 

“You already know Tony and Natasha,” Phil says. Anna nods to the pair on the couch as Phil draws her attention to the other person sitting in their little clump. “This is Clint Barton.”

The man stands, nods, and extends his hand. Anna shakes it. She wants to make some joke about how Skye originally thought that he was more of a significant other to Phil than she was, but it dies on her tongue when she sees a little bit of something in his eyes. She can't quite put her finger on what it is exactly; something akin to feeling lost or anxiety or just some other dark and sad emotion that she can’t place. It fades behind a mask of a smile as quickly as she spots it. “Nice to finally meet you,” he says as he shakes her hand. 

“Thor's off-planet at the moment,” Phil says. “So you won't get to meet him until later.”

“I'm okay with that,” she replies quietly before sipping her wine. 

There's only one person left to meet and Phil can barely contain his smile. “Anna Ellis, I'd like you to meet Captain Rogers.”

The man--who is just as broad, handsome, and unreal as you'd imagine he'd be--smiles slightly uncomfortably from the attention. “Please call me Steve,” he says as he shakes her hand. 

“You have no idea how long he's waited to do that,” Anna tells him, causing Phil to duck his head. “And I owe you a thank you. You saved my grandfather in Italy.”

His blue eyes squint for a moment. “I don't remember meeting an Ellis.”

“My maiden name is Howard, and it's fine if you don't remember it. He certainly did, and I'm sure the story he told was a little more glorified than what actually happened.”

“You never told me about this,” Phil comments.

Anna shrugs. “I figured you'd never dump me if you found out. Didn't want you to feel beholden.”

Whatever quip Phil has on his lips falls silent because the air is filled with Leo's shout of “He wasn't a traitor!“ The young man flees the kitchen with red eyes, Jemma hot on his tail and repeating his name. Skye makes a beeline for Anna. She takes her wine glass, passes it to Phil, and grabs Anna's hands, being mindful to be gentle with her still-healing right hand. “Fitz, look,” she orders. 

Jemma nods. “I know you can recognize trauma when you see it. Come look at her wrists.” Leo approaches slowly, his jaw clenched. “Ward took her. He kidnapped her and took her to Garrett who broke her fingers. We had to rescue her, remember?”

Leo shakes his head vehemently and bolts out to the deck. Jemma and Skye start to follow, but Melinda blocks the door as Anna shouts at them to stop. She didn't mean to yell, but she knows what it's like to not want to deal with the truth, and she isn't too appreciative of being dragged into the argument like some piece of evidence in a criminal trial. 

“Leave him alone,” she hisses at them. She takes a deep breath before continuing. “You can't force him into things like this. You have to give him space and let him adjust on his own. You can't shove him into accepting things. Trust me.”

“I'll keep an eye on him,” Melinda says before she slips out onto the deck and tucks herself into a corner, blending in to the shadows. Trip herds the girls back to the kitchen to give Leo some space and to distract his teammates.

The party slowly regains its footing by the arrival of pizza and when Stark turns on some seventies spy thriller. Leo eventually lurks back in to silently nibble on pizza. The girls sit on either side of him while Melinda, Trip, and Phil take turns glancing over to keep an eye on things.

When they finally collapse into bed, Anna rolls to face Phil. The fingers of her left hand come up to gently trace the planes of his face. “Doing okay?” she asks. 

He snorts a little laugh. “I honestly didn't think they'd care that much that I was back. Maybe Natasha and Clint, sure, but not the rest of them.”

She kisses him long and slow. “When are you going to get it through your head that you're loved?”

He works his mouth for a few seconds trying to think of a comeback, but instead just pulls her closer to him and places a kiss into her hair.


	23. Clint Barton: Bodyguard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the_wordbutler for her constant stream of support, especially for this story. And for making my words readable.

Anna isn't necessarily surprised to wake up to an empty bed. Rarely did she wake before Phil, so she doesn’t notice anything is amiss until she steps out into the living room to find Clint Barton sitting at the dining room table, swiping at a tablet. 

“Are you meeting Phil?” she asks as she pulls her bathrobe tighter around her body. 

The man doesn’t bother looking up from his tablet; he merely points to a piece of paper on the table. Anna immediately recognizes Phil's scrawl of her name on the front of a piece of paper folded in half. Anna eyes Barton once more as she picks up the note and unfolds it.

_Anna—we were called out on a mission with the Initiative. Hopefully be back in a few days. Clint will stick with you. Love you._

“You're going to stick with me?” Anna asks. “Care to clarify that?”

Finally, his eyes meet hers. “He didn't tell you?”

Anna shakes her head, but she holds up her hand to keep him from saying anything else. “I'm going to need coffee before we have this chat. Want some?”

Clint pointed to a silver thermal travel mug sitting on the table. “I'm good.”

Three days have passed since the night Anna met the Avengers—including the one sitting at her dining room table. Anna frowns as she pours a large mug of coffee. If the Avengers are away...

She walks back out into the dining room and sits opposite the famed archer. Looking him over, she can't spot any obvious injuries that would keep him grounded. “So explain,” she orders. 

“What exactly did Phil say?” he asks. Anna flicks the note across the table him, and he snorts as he reads it. “Wuss,” he mutters before looking back up at Anna. “He asked me to serve as a bodyguard for you. Said you were attacked not long ago, and with him taking on the new position, he wanted someone to watch out for you.”

“You mean watch out for me just when he's away, right?” Barton's lips roll into a tight line. “This is a permanent thing?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Rule one: you're not calling me that ever.” She sips from her mug as she ponders things. Used to be she would be livid with Phil assigning her protection, especially without discussing it with her first. But then the attack happened. She has nightmares about Ward and Garrett, especially when Phil isn’t sleeping next to her. Anna can't find herself getting too angry with Phil for his call. There should've been a talk, of course, but communication has always been a struggle in their relationship. “Wuss indeed,” she replied. 

“I won't usually be waiting in your apartment when you wake up,” Clint reassured. “But I will tail you whenever you're outside the Tower.”

Anna shakes her head. “None of that half-a-block-behind-me crap. I'm paranoid enough as it is, and I'll constantly be looking over my shoulder. If we're out in public, you walk right beside me.”

“Okay,” he answers with a nod. “But you have to do as I say.”

“Seeing as how I never want Phil to have to rescue me again, that shouldn't be a problem.” She settles back into her chair with another drink from her mug. “I know I've locked myself away the last few days practicing while Phil's done nothing but meetings, but I don't remembering hearing any news about you getting hurt. And I don't think Phil would assign you as my protection if you were injured.”

“I'm fine,” he replies, his eyes squinting slightly to try and track the trajectory of their conversation. 

“Then why aren't you with your team?”

He shrugs, an attempt at nonchalance but it doesn't quite fully convince Anna. “Coulson put me on this.” 

“And I'm more important than saving the world?”

“You're his world,” he replies quietly. “And I owe him.” Anna doesn't say anything in response to that, just takes another swallow of her coffee and waits for him to keep talking. It takes a few minutes, and he's obviously reluctant to open his mouth, but he finally does. “Have you ever not been in control of your mind?”

Anna huffs a breath of bitter laughter. “I'm pretty sure I can speak five kinds of crazy.”

“Ever have an alien inside your brain?”

Her gut churns at the question. “No,” she admits quietly. 

“You don't know the story, do you?”

“What story?”

“Of how Coulson died.”

Anna’s souring stomach freezes into a chunk of ice at those four words. “His redhead—Natasha—she was the one who told me was gone. She said he’d been attacked by Loki. That my idiotic and idealistic boyfriend had decided to take on an alien god all by himself.”

Barton nods and stares at his hands for a moment before talking again. “I was the one who got Loki onto the Helicarrier. It’s my fault that Coulson died.”

Everything in her body shuts down. She’s in an apartment alone with Phil’s enemy all over again, and she can’t bring herself to move. Her whole body begins to quake and her breaths come in quick pants. She falls whole-heartedly into a panic attack, and her vision begins to pinhole.

She can hear Barton’s voice, but her brain can’t process the words. It’s too busy being flooded with terror. “Hey,” he shouts, and she jumps in her seat when her vision begins to clear and she realizes he’s kneeling in front of her. “It wasn’t on purpose. I’d never hurt him on purpose. You have to believe me on that.”

“Would you hurt me to get to him? Or let someone do it?”

“No,” he breathes, and what little part of Anna’s brain that’s still functioning normally hears the honesty in the statement. He slowly shifts from kneeling before her to sitting in the chair to her left before speaking again. “Loki took over my brain. It was like someone caged me up and shoved me to the side, and I just had to watch the whole thing go down.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, before slowly reiterating, “I would never hurt Phil.”

“I still don’t get it. Why are you here? Why aren’t you out with the Avengers? I haven’t seen you in the news stories of them lately.”

He rolls his lips once more. “S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t really trust me after the whole mind-control thing. Gave me shit jobs, just one rung up the ladder from tethering me to a desk.”

“Phil’s in charge now, he can change that.”

“He did,” Clint answers with a small smile. “I’m protecting you. Pretty sure that’s the biggest job he could ever give someone.”

Anna shakes her head. “I can’t be more important than the Avengers.”

Clint shrugs but doesn’t say anything more. He pulls her cell phone out of his pocket and slides it across the table’s surface to her. “You get in a bind and I’m not with you—which probably won’t happen—you dial nine-one-one. You won’t get the police; you’ll get me. If I don’t answer, it will go to May.” He pauses to lean forward on his elbows again. “And if I don’t answer, it’s because I can’t. Got it?” She nods, swallows, and reaches for her phone. But something about it seems off now, weighty and heavy, and her hand falls empty back into her lap. “You going anywhere today?” he asks.

It takes a moment for her brain to recalibrate and think of simple things like her schedule. “No, I don’t think so.”

“’Kay. Call me if you do. I’m under Greg Duffy in your contacts if you change your mind.”

He stands and heads toward the door, but she calls his name before he leaves. He turns and waits expectantly for her to say something. “Why are you doing this?” she asks. “The real reason. I know you used to work with Natasha and the two of you are close, Phil told me as much. And I can’t imagine a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent would turn down the chance to save the world. Phil’s all about being a team player, and I’m sure he misses having you on that team. Why are you here?”

“I owe him,” Clint answers simply. “He’s saved my life more times than I can count. And I helped to end is. So now that he’s back? And I can try and earn some… whatever with him? I’m going to do whatever he asks.”


	24. How to Deal with Nightmares

Anna jolts upright in bed with a start. Her left hand feels the other side of the mattress out of habit, but it’s still empty and cold. Phil’s first mission with the Avengers was supposed to end two days ago, but he hasn’t come home yet. She hasn’t heard from his since he left, but news coverage from half a world away makes it easy to understand why.

Her sudden movement as she’d snapped out of her nightmare had scared Felix from the room, and she flops back down onto the mattress. She knows she won’t get back to sleep easily. Normally, she’d throw on sweats and go run or practice her cello. But she can’t leave the building without alerting her new bodyguard, and she’s pretty sure Phil sweet-talked JARVIS into alerting him whenever she spent too many hours practicing her instrument with her still-tender hand.

She feels caged, pent-up energy longing to escape but having nowhere to go. From the recesses of her mind, she remembers that Tony gave her access to the gym used by the Tower’s residents. She hates treadmills, but it’s better than nothing.

Anna expects the gym to be empty, but it’s not. Apparently, three in the morning isn’t a time that is kind to Clint, either. He’s lying on a weight bench doing a circuit of presses while a droid built by Tony spots him. Once he’s huffed his way through his last press, he settles the bar back in the holder and sits up.

“Here for the gun show?” he asks while toweling the sweat from his face.

The stupid joke is exactly what Anna needs at the moment, and she can’t help but smile a bit. “More like I can’t sleep and I need to burn some energy.”

He stares her down for a second. She’s found out already that his gaze can be too intense to maintain eye contact sometimes. “Bad dream?” She nods. “About what?”

“I don’t know,” she answers with a shrug. “I just remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe, and I have plenty of stuff in my past to make me feel like that.” He stays quiet, and she feels the need to fill the void with babbling. “Normally, I’d go running, but I didn’t want to wake you. So I figured I’d just use the treadmill instead.”

“Well, I’m obviously not asleep,” he says as he stands from the weight bench. “So let’s go running.”

“If you want to go back to bed—“

“Nope,” he replies, cutting her off. “I know exactly what my nightmares are about.”

They make their way out of the Tower, and Anna reaches inside her hoodie pocket to wrap her fingers around her iPod. “You promise you have my back?” she asks. He nods solemnly, so she pulls out the device, jams her earbuds in, and starts up her trusty running playlist filled with angry-sounding classical pieces. 

He keeps his word and sticks right by her side, eyes casually sweeping the area around them. Each step of her feet and note in her ears drains the tension from her body. Her mind is reduced to focusing on her breathing, a much-needed distraction.

Clint guides her up sidewalks to Central Park, and they’re halfway through their loop in the green expanse when Clint stops and points up to the sky. Two clusters of pale blue lights shoot through the sky above them; the smaller set heads toward the Tower, while the larger—six lights that Anna can deduce are engines on a large plane—bank towards the left. She looks to Clint for confirmation and he nods.

Phil’s home.

With renewed energy, they run back to the Tower. Anna leaves her earbuds out for the return trip, but doesn’t start a conversation with Clint. Half because she wouldn’t know what to say and half because she’s not used to running this far this fast and she’s worried she might keel over.

On the elevator ride up, Anna catches Clint smirking at her. “Shut up,” she says between pants. “I thought it was your job to keep me from dying, not cause my death.”

His grin broadens. “You’re griping at me, so I’m pretty sure I’ve still done my job.”

She rolls her eyes as she steps off onto her floor, waving goodbye. Her apartment is quiet and dark when she walks in, but she knows it’s not empty. She recognizes Skye’s suitcase, which is dumped over halfway between the front door and the guest bedroom. Felix sleeps peacefully on top of it.

Anna moves on to her bedroom, fully expecting Phil to be zonked out in bed. Instead, he’s stripped down to his boxers reading from a tablet, glasses and a scowl on his face. She’s proud of herself for no longer jumping or getting emotional at his scar. “Hi,” he greets without looking up.

“Hey,” she replies while removing her shoes and stripping out of her clothes. “You okay?”

He sighs and finally looks up from his work. “When I was just an agent, I used to complain all the time about how decisions were made. ‘I could run things better than this’ was something I apparently said a few too many times, and I’m pretty sure karma is rearing its ugly head.”

“That bad?” she prods as she sits next to him wearing only her underwear and sports bra.

“You alright?” he asks, noting how her breathing isn’t quite under control yet. She waves him off and he answers her question. “I’m not sure Stark and I can come to an agreement. I want to rebuild a strong foundation for the agency, and he wants to go after HYDRA. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t big enough to do both at the same time. And he keeps leeching everyone away from me.”

“Sorry,” she apologizes.

“Not your fault. How’s it going with Clint?”

“It makes me feel like I’m some uber-important concubine to a king,” she tells him.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

He smiles and pulls her to him. “Well, I do think you’re uber-important.”

She plants a hand on his chest to stop him from pulling her any closer. “I need to wash sweat off of me—or at the very least brush my teeth—before we fool around.”

“You’ll just get sweaty again.”

“I know, but—“

“Fine,” he says as he lets go. “I’ll finish this report. You go whatever.”

She pads off to the bathroom to quickly wash up. After she towels most of the water out of her brown curls, she stops in the closet between the bathroom and the bedroom. It’s been a while since she wore one of his dress shirts, and she knows what kind of reaction it will get. Using only the bare minimum of buttons, she walks out to the bedroom—where Phil is asleep with his tablet in his lap.

“Of course this is what happens,” she whispers to herself.

Now that he’s not in focused work mode, she can easily read the lines of exhaustion on his face and body. Gently, she pulls the tablet out of his grip and removes the glasses from his face. He stirs a little at that. “Lay down,” she orders softly.

He complies, and she walks around the bed to curl up on her side of the mattress. Muscle memory takes over for him as he spoons up behind her. She grins into her pillow, breathes deeply for the first time since he’s left, and falls into nightmare-free sleep.


	25. The Break-Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eternal thanks to **the_wordbutler** for cleaning up my words and being my sounding board for this story.

When Anna wakes the next morning, it’s to the sound of Phil getting dressed. “We were supposed to have sex last night,” she mumbles into her pillow. 

“You mean early this morning?” he corrects. He laughs when she flips him off. “I appreciate the effort with putting on my shirt and everything. Sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Come back to bed. You probably haven’t slept in days.”

“Can’t,” he replies, and he at least sounds slightly remorseful when he says it. “We have to finish packing. Wheels up in two hours.”

That causes Anna’s brain to clear away some sleepy haze. “Who’s ‘we’ and why do you have another mission so soon? You know that since you’re in charge you can pass that off to other people, right?”

Phil sits on the foot of the bed with a sigh. “We need to talk.”

“You’re leaving,” Anna surmises.

“Yes,” he answers. “I’m sorry. Tony and I can’t see eye-to-eye on things. I’m wasting time, and I need to start things over with S.H.I.E.L.D., do what I was ordered to do and rebuild. But I can’t do that here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the base where May brought you.”

“The secret base that I’m not allowed to know about?”

“That’s the one,” he answered as he continued neatly placing clothes in a suitcase and emptying out his drawers completely.

“How long?” Anna questioned.

“I don’t know. We’ll—“

“We?”

“The team and I. We’re leaving in two hours. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

“And what about us?” she asks, and once again feels like a needy idiot for having to do so.

“I’m not going to make that call,” he tells her. 

She snorts as she climbs out of their bed. Something breaks inside of her, and she cannot stand to live in this relationship limbo any longer. No amount of denial can cover up the fact that this will never work between them, not in a way that will keep her sane, and she’s filled with exhaustion over it. “No, because that would require to grow a pair and make a decision about our relationship.” Hastily, she unbuttons his dress shirt, yanks it off her body, and throws it at his head. Childish to be sure, but also therapeutic. 

“Anna,” he calls after her. “Please listen to me for a second.”

“So you can tell me how you’re going to make some more non-decisions?” she fires back while pulling on clothes. They probably don’t even match, but she can’t find herself to care at the moment. “Let me explain how this conversation is going to go—and I can predict it because we’ve had it about a hundred times: you won’t make the decision, I won’t make the decision because I’m too broken and dependent on you controlling everything in my life—“

“I do not do that,” Phil yells back.

Anna laughs bitterly before arguing back. “Everything in my life revolves around you. _Everything_.” She can’t help but to cross the room and step into his personal space. “I move from Portland to New York the first time to see you more. I move back because it’s not enough. I have to move to San Francisco because I thought you were dead and I couldn’t stand being in the city where I fell in love with you. I move back and just when my life is almost kilter again, you show up from the dead. I get fired from my job because one of your people attacked me. I move here because you’ve arranged for me to have a living space and a job. You control everything.”

“It’s not like that,” he replies softly.

“It’s exactly like that.” She turns and moves away from him, shaking her head. “I might as well start packing, too. The only reason I’m here is because of you. And if we break up, like they’ll keep me around.”

“I’ll make sure—“

“Don’t,” she orders sharply, whipping around to face him. “I cannot do this anymore. Do you understand that at all? I cannot have you meddling and controlling everything. Everyone in my life is there because of you. I haven’t had a friend that’s just mine in years, the secrets involved with all of this just get in the way.” She slides down to the floor, the yelling sapping her of her energy to stand. “I really thought we could pull it off this time,” she comments softly. “I really thought this would be the time we could make it work. But I’m an idiot for not seeing that it was just another episode of us trying to play house.”

“So we’re done?” Phil asks. In all this time, he hasn’t moved, rooted next to his suitcase, pair of socks in his hand. 

_No_ , she thinks. Anna doesn’t want to be, never wants to be. She looks up at the face she is honest-to-god in love with. The one with the kind eyes with beautiful lines around them that crinkle when he smiles. She doesn’t want to be done with him, not ever. But she cannot live her life like this anymore. 

“Yes,” she whispers.

He nods once, no other movement in his body. They stay like that—opposite sides of the bedroom, looking at the ground and not each other—for a few minutes before he roughly clears his throat, pitches the socks in the suitcase, and zips it up. “I’ll have someone come and collect my things. They can come when you’re not here if that will make it easier.”

She tries to ignore how hard he’s trying to keep his voice from breaking. “That’s fine,” Anna answers.

Phil nods once more and strides to the door. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob and turns to face her. “I—“ he starts, but doesn’t finish. She doesn’t know what’s supposed to follow— _am sorry_ or _love you_ or something completely different—because he clamps his jaw shut and leaves.

And just like that, he’s gone again.

She doesn’t sob like she did when he died. She thinks back to words she can barely remember saying after he rescued her from Ward and Garrett. About how they’re two pieces who keep trying to ram together to slot into place, but it doesn’t line up and pieces of themselves just end up getting broken off. She feels like she’s lost more of herself than she currently has. Like someone’s scooped out everything that matters and left her hollow. 

The tears come when Anna reminds herself that feeling like this is for the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the end of the series. I want to switch to Phil's POV, so I'll start a new story--"The Director"--once the show starts back up. Hopefully you'll stick around for it.


End file.
